Data Curation Environment (DCE)

Cycle-based AI development, in the editor you already live in.

The DCE turns AI-assisted work into cycles: you describe what this round should accomplish, activate your agent, and review what came back — then write the next cycle. Your context is curated, your project's memory is artifact-first, and the whole loop is visible in one place: the Ascentia world.

Built for people who use VS Code + Claude Code with a Claude subscription. Your own agent does the work; the DCE curates what it sees and keeps the history.

The Ascentia world — your agent at work

The loop

Select the context. Check the files that matter in the File Tree View — code, docs, design artifacts. The DCE flattens your selection (plus your cycle history) into one agent.md the agent reads top-down.
Write the cycle. Say what this round should do, in plain words. Cycle Notes color your draft as you write — green where a thought is named, red where it isn't yet.
Activate the agent. One click hands the cycle to Claude Code (or your harness of choice). No copy-paste, no prompt assembly.
Watch the work. The Ascentia world visualizes the live session — transmissions, threads, token flow, the orb streaming. Your past cycles orbit as a constellation.
Review by git colors. The agent's work lands uncommitted. Modified and new files in your tree ARE the review; the pinned response carries the summary, the diffs, and the handoff list. Keep it and write the next cycle — or git restore . and try again.

What you get

Context curation — file selection with token counts, shadow-repo support, binary/PDF/Office extraction, and automatic selection upkeep as the agent proposes additions.
Cycle history as memory — every cycle's context, response, and changed files persist locally; sprints group into orbits you can revisit.
The Ascentia world — a live visualization of your agent at work: transmission log, thread telemetry, approval and question mirrors, the Code Cosmos of your repo.
Cycle Notes — real-time key-pair structure over your draft, with AI-suggested keys grounded in your own workspace.
Dictation — streaming speech-to-text into the cycle context. No setup: the recorder ships inside the DCE.
Artifact-first doctrine — features live in documents before code; the DCE keeps the two aligned.

The Code Cosmos — every cycle a constellation

Cycle Notes — your draft, structured as you write

Review by git colors — badges, diffs, and the handoff list

Requirements

VS Code 1.90+ and git.
An agent harness: Claude Code (recommended — extension or CLI) or any agent you can point at a file. A clipboard mode covers everything else.

Installing Claude Code

Installing the DCE also installs the Claude Code extension automatically (they ship as a pack) — for most people there is nothing to do. If you'd rather not use the extension, the Claude Code CLI works just as well:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Or the native installer (no Node required) — macOS/Linux: curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash · Windows (PowerShell): irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

Then sign in once with claude in any terminal (it walks you through login with your Claude subscription). The DCE auto-detects whichever you have.

License

Installing is free, and un-activated installs run a 10-cycle trial. One key, yours forever: the DCE License is $5 at aiascent.dev/dce/buy — the streaming runs on your own Claude subscription. In VS Code, run DCE: Enter License Key and paste it once. Lost it? Recover by email.

Your work, your repos, and your cycle history always stay on your machine.

Data Curation Environment