AI Drift Detector
VSCode extension that watches your Claude Code and OpenAI Codex chats and warns when sessions drift — losing focus, repeating mistakes, or wasting your time.
What it does
- Auto-detects new Claude Code transcripts
- Creates a drift session per chat tab and posts turns as they happen
- Live status bar showing the active profile; click it to switch profiles
- Notification with actions when drift is detected
- Sidebar list of recent sessions (AI Drift activity-bar view)
- Reports VSCode task and terminal outcomes (lint/build/test pass/fail) for the active turn
- Watches git for commits and pushes and attaches them to the session timeline
Install
From VS Code:
- Open the Extensions pane (
Cmd+Shift+X / Ctrl+Shift+X).
- Search for AI Drift Detector (publisher GenioHub).
- Click Install.
Or from the command line:
code --install-extension GenioHub.aidrift
Marketplace page: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=GenioHub.aidrift
Setup
The extension connects to AiDrift at https://drift.geniohub.com by default. Sign up or sign in:
- Click the AI Drift icon in the activity bar.
- Click Sign In in the welcome view, or run
Drift: Sign In from the Command Palette.
- Pick browser sign-in for the zero-copy flow — the dashboard opens, you sign up or log in, and the token comes back to VS Code automatically. Or paste a PAT from the dashboard's Generate Token button.
The same sign-in works for the companion CLI (npm i -g @aidrift/cli) and the Claude Code plugin — credentials are shared via ~/.drift/profiles.json.
For local/self-hosted AiDrift backends, run Drift: Add Profile to register a second profile pointing at your backend URL (e.g. http://localhost:3331/api) and switch to it.
Commands
All commands are available from the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P) under the Drift: prefix. Some are also surfaced from the status bar, the sidebar welcome view, and the walkthrough.
Authentication
| Command |
How to use |
Drift: Sign In |
Opens a quick-pick with three sign-in methods (browser / token / email+password). Pick one and follow the prompts. |
Drift: Sign In with Browser |
Opens the active profile's dashboard at /cli-signin?callback=vscode://…. After you log in or sign up, the dashboard redirects back and the token is stored automatically. |
Drift: Sign In with Token |
Prompts for a Personal Access Token (aidrift_pat_…) copied from the dashboard. Paste and confirm. |
Drift: Sign In with Email + Password |
Prompts for email, then password. Only works for accounts registered with a password. |
Drift: Sign Out |
Clears the stored token for the active profile, stops all watchers, and resets the status bar. |
Drift: Show Signed-In User |
Calls /auth/me and shows the current email + user id, or warns if the session expired. |
Profiles (multi-host support)
A "profile" is a named {apiBaseUrl, dashboardUrl} pair with its own stored token. The active profile name is shown in the status bar; clicking it runs Drift: Switch Profile.
| Command |
How to use |
Drift: Switch Profile |
Quick-pick of profiles; the active one has a check mark. Also includes Add profile… and Edit profile… shortcuts. Switching restarts the watchers against the new host. |
Drift: Add Profile |
Prompts for name (letters/digits/_/-), API base URL, and dashboard URL. Offers to switch to the new profile immediately. |
Drift: Edit Profile |
Pick a profile, then edit its name, API URL, and dashboard URL. |
Drift: Remove Profile |
Pick a non-active profile; confirms with a modal before deleting the profile and its stored credentials. Cannot remove the active profile — switch first. |
Drift: Show Current Profile |
Shows the active profile name, API URL, and signed-in email (or "not signed in"). |
Session control
These operate on the currently tracked session (the most recent chat the watcher attached to).
| Command |
How to use |
Drift: Show Status for Active Session |
Shows a notification with the last cached drift score, trend, task description, and any active alert reasons. |
Drift: Mark Last Turn Accepted |
Marks the most recent turn as accepted via PATCH /turns/:id/outcome. Feeds the acceptance-rate signal. |
Drift: Mark Last Turn Rejected |
Same as above but marks the turn rejected. |
Drift: Create Checkpoint for Active Session |
Prompts for a summary, then creates a manual checkpoint on the latest turn and records the current git rev-parse HEAD if available. |
Drift: Open Last Stable Checkpoint |
Opens the dashboard at the most recent checkpointed turn (anchor #turn-…). Warns if no stable checkpoint exists yet. |
Dashboard + diagnostics
| Command |
How to use |
Drift: Open Active Session in Dashboard |
Opens {dashboardUrl}/sessions/{activeId}?workspacePath=… in the system browser. Falls back to /sessions if no active session. |
Drift: Open Session in Dashboard |
Programmatic variant that takes a sessionId argument (used by the sidebar tree; not normally invoked by hand). |
Drift: Refresh Sessions |
Refreshes the sidebar tree. Also exposed as the refresh icon in the AI Drift view title. |
Drift: Debug Tracking |
Dumps watcher state, workspace root, active session id, and a call to /tracking/health into a new AI Drift Tracking output channel. Use when sessions aren't appearing. |
UI surfaces
- Activity bar view
AI Drift — tree of recent sessions. Auto-refreshes. Shows a welcome view with sign-in buttons when signed out.
- Status bar item —
$(pulse) aidrift: {profile}. Click to switch profiles. Tooltip shows the API URL.
- Walkthrough
Get Started with AI Drift — three steps: sign in, switch profiles, open the view. Available from the VSCode Walkthroughs page.
- URI handler —
vscode://geniohub.aidrift/signin-callback?token=… is how the browser sign-in delivers the token back. vscode://geniohub.aidrift/open-diff?... opens a diff from the dashboard.
The Commit Log view in the AI Drift sidebar shows the last 100 commits on the active branch, annotated with the drift state of the session that produced each commit. Green dots are clean (score ≥ 80), yellow are drifted (< 80), and outlined dots are commits AiDrift didn't observe. Hover for the producing session's task and top focal points; click to open the session in the dashboard.
Settings
aidrift.watchClaudeCode (default true) — watch ~/.claude/projects/ for transcripts.aidrift.watchCodex (default true) — watch ~/.codex/sessions/ for rollouts.aidrift.trackTaskExecution (default true) — report VSCode task/terminal outcomes for the active turn. Terminal coverage requires shell integration (VSCode 1.93+).aidrift.watchGitEvents (default true) — watch .git/refs/ for commits and pushes.aidrift.statusPollIntervalSeconds (default 30) — poll interval for /sessions/:id/status. Backs off exponentially on failure, cap 5 min.aidrift.requestTimeoutSeconds (default 10, min 2) — HTTP timeout for extension → API calls.aidrift.driftAlertThreshold (default 65) — score below which a drift alert fires.aidrift.autoCheckpoint (default true) — auto-checkpoint on every accepted turn.aidrift.implicitAcceptTimeoutSeconds (default 300) — seconds without a follow-up before a turn is treated as implicitly accepted.aidrift.apiBaseUrl, aidrift.dashboardUrl — deprecated, ignored once profiles are configured. Use Drift: Add Profile / Drift: Switch Profile instead.
