Strata – File Explorer

A lightweight, fast file explorer for VS Code — file & folder sizes, modified dates, and colorful icons in clean, sortable, resizable columns.

Strata adds a sidebar view that shows your workspace as a clean, sortable table with the columns the built-in Explorer can't display: file size, folder size, and modified date. It's styled with VS Code's own theme variables and icons, so it looks like it shipped with the editor — and it stays out of your way: zero runtime dependencies, no telemetry, no network calls.

Because it reads file metadata through the extension host, it works transparently over Remote-SSH, Dev Containers, and WSL — connect to a remote machine and browse it with full size/date columns, as if you were local.

Why Strata?

VS Code's built-in Explorer can't show extra columns. The only inline text an extension can add there is a 2-character badge — far too small for a real file size. Strata sidesteps that with its own view rendered to match your theme, giving you a true "details" layout without giving up the native feel.

Features

• 📏 File & folder sizes — folder sizes are computed lazily (only when you expand or hover a folder), so heavy trees like node_modules never slow you down.
• 🗓️ Modified column — relative times (5m, 3h, 2d) then compact dates; full timestamp on hover.
• ↕️ Sortable columns — click a header to sort by name, size, or date.
• ↔️ Resizable columns — drag the header dividers; widths persist across reloads.
• 🎨 Colorful, type-aware icons via the bundled Material Icon Theme, plus faint indent guides — all matching your active color theme (light, dark, high-contrast).
• 🌐 Remote-friendly — works over Remote-SSH / Dev Containers / WSL out of the box.
• 🪶 Lightweight — zero runtime dependencies, no telemetry, no network; fonts and icons are bundled (no CDN).

Settings

Requirements

• VS Code 1.84 or newer.

Install

Search for "Strata File Explorer" in the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X), or install from the command line:

code --install-extension FlashCosmos.strata-file-explorer

Then open the Strata icon in the Activity Bar.

Building from source

npm install        # also copies Codicon assets into media/
npm run compile    # or: npm run watch  (press F5 to launch an Extension Dev Host)
npm run package    # produces a .vsix

Credits

File-type icons are from the Material Icon Theme (MIT) by Philipp Kief. See THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.

License

MIT © FlashCosmos