SSH FS Plus

Enhanced & maintained fork of SSH FS by Kelvin Schoofs

Mount remote folders as local workspace folders, launch integrated remote terminals and run ssh-shell tasks — all over SSH.

Why does this exist?

Because I needed it. Seriously. The original SSH FS stopped being maintained, and every other solution I tried had at least one deal-breaker — whether it was requiring a server-side daemon, not working on restricted servers, or just missing features I needed. So I did what any reasonable developer would do — I forked it and started fixing things myself.

This is primarily a personal project. I use it daily, I fix what annoys me, and I add features when I need them. If it's useful to you too — great! But fair warning: the roadmap is basically "whatever I need next."

What's different from the original SSH FS?

🤖 Copilot Integration (v2.4+)

The biggest addition. Eight custom Language Model Tools that make GitHub Copilot actually useful on remote SSH workspaces:

VS Code's built-in Copilot tools are designed for local/Remote SSH workspaces and don't support custom ssh:// filesystem URIs. These tools bridge that gap — they execute directly on the remote server via SSH, so Copilot works just as well on SSH FS mounts as it does locally.

There's also an @sshfs Chat Participant (v2.6+) — type @sshfs in Copilot Chat and it automatically routes all operations through the SSH-specific tools.

🎭 MCP Playwright — works out of the box

Playwright is a browser automation framework by Microsoft — it can programmatically open web pages, click buttons, fill forms, take screenshots and run end-to-end tests across Chromium, Firefox and WebKit.

VS Code supports Playwright as an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, which means GitHub Copilot in agent mode can control a real browser directly from chat — navigate to URLs, interact with page elements, capture screenshots, and more.

Because SSH FS Plus runs in the local VS Code UI host (extensionKind: ["ui", "workspace"]), all MCP traffic stays on your local machine. Playwright launches a local browser, Copilot talks to it via MCP, and your SSH remote workspace works alongside it without any conflicts. No special configuration needed — just open the Extensions view, search @mcp playwright, and install an MCP Playwright server directly from the built-in MCP gallery.

My typical workflow: I edit websites on remote servers over SSH, and when I need visual tweaks, I just tell Copilot to open the site's URL in Playwright. It navigates to the page, takes a screenshot, spots visual issues, edits the code on the remote server, and reloads — all in one conversation. Code editing and visual debugging in a single loop, no context switching.

This makes SSH FS Plus a great setup for workflows like:

• Editing code on a remote server while Copilot visually debugs the result in a local browser
• Asking Copilot to verify API responses by navigating to endpoints
• Automated UI testing driven by natural language in Copilot Chat

🔧 Modernization & Fixes

� QuickDiff Change Tracking (v2.7+)

VS Code's built-in change tracking doesn't work with custom ssh:// filesystem schemes. SSH FS Plus provides its own — gutter indicators, "M" badge in Explorer, Source Control panel with click-to-diff, navigate/accept/reject individual change blocks, and auto-scroll to AI-made changes.

📡 Connection Management (v2.7+)

• Auto-reconnect with exponential backoff — on disconnect, retries 3× (1s → 2s → 4s) before prompting
• Status bar indicator — live SSH connection status (disconnected/connecting/connected with names), click to connect
• Import from ~/.ssh/config — parses OpenSSH config and lets you pick hosts to import (Host, HostName, User, Port, IdentityFile, ProxyJump)

🐛 Bug Fixes

• replaceVariablesRecursive — fixed incorrect variable substitution
• quickPickItemTooltip — removed proposed API crash
• extensionKind: ["ui", "workspace"] — runs in the local UI host, keeping Copilot/MCP traffic local
• Dynamic extension ID — no more hard-coded publisher name
• FileSearchProvider & TextSearchProvider (v2.2+) — remote file/text search via find/grep for VS Code's search sidebar

Installation

Install from the VS Code Marketplace, or:

1. Download the latest .vsix from Releases
2. In VS Code: Extensions → ⋯ → Install from VSIX…
3. Reload VS Code

Features

Config editor

The built-in config editor makes it easy to create and edit configurations:

Configurations are stored in your User Settings (settings.json), workspace settings, or external JSON files configured with sshfs.configpaths.

Terminals

Open remote terminals with a single click or from the command palette:

Uses $SHELL by default. Existing connections are reused — no need to reauthenticate.

Remote shell tasks

A ssh-shell task type for running shell commands remotely with full PTY support:

Remote workspace folders

Mount remote directories as regular workspace folders:

Works with extensions using the vscode.workspace.fs API. Right-click any remote directory to open a terminal there.

Proxy support

SSH hopping, HTTP and SOCKS 4/5 proxies are supported:

SSH Hop works similarly to OpenSSH's ProxyJump:

SFTP Command / Sudo

Custom sftp subsystem commands and sudo support for operating on remote files as root:

Links

• VS Code Marketplace
• GitHub (this fork) (Issues | Releases)
• Original SSH FS by Kelvin Schoofs (VS Marketplace | Open VSX)

Credits

This project is a fork of SSH FS created by Kelvin Schoofs, licensed under GPL-3.0.
All original code and design credit belongs to Kelvin Schoofs. This fork adds modernization, bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements on top of the original work.