Gortex for VS Code

Graph-aware code intelligence inside VS Code — powered by the Gortex daemon.

The extension does three jobs at once:

1. Registers Gortex as an MCP server for GitHub Copilot Chat / agent mode (VS Code 1.99+). Copilot picks up ~30 graph-aware tools — search_symbols, find_usages, get_call_chain, get_dependents, edit_symbol, explain_change_impact, and more — with zero mcp.json editing.
2. Surfaces the daemon directly in VS Code: a status bar item with live health, a side-panel tree view of every tracked repo (with file / node / edge counts), and a daemon-info panel with version, uptime, memory, and session count.
3. Adds first-class graph commands: find symbols, jump to callers or usages of the symbol under the cursor, compute blast radius — all from the command palette or via keybindings. Queries go through a long-lived gortex mcp subprocess that proxies to the daemon, so every call lands in ~30-100ms instead of re-indexing the repo from scratch.

Prerequisites

The gortex binary must be on your PATH.

macOS / Linux:

brew install zzet/tap/gortex
# or
curl -fsSL https://get.gortex.dev | sh

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://get.gortex.dev/install.ps1 | iex

Verify with gortex version (extension v0.3.9 expects v0.28.0 or newer).

If the binary lives somewhere unusual, set gortex.binaryPath in your VS Code settings.

Install

VS Code → Extensions panel → search Gortex → Install.

Or sideload a local build:

code --install-extension gortex-0.3.9.vsix

What you get

Status bar

A status bar item polls gortex daemon status every 60 seconds (configurable) and shows the daemon state, tracked-repo count, and total graph nodes. Click it for the full status dump or to start a stopped daemon. Daemon-control commands trigger an immediate refresh.

Activity Bar panel

A new Gortex icon in the activity bar opens two tree views:

• Tracked Repositories — every repo the daemon is indexing, grouped by workspace. Click a repo to open it in a new window or add it to the current workspace.
• Daemon — version, PID, uptime, memory, sessions, totals.

Native VS Code integrations (always on)

Gortex plugs into VS Code's built-in surfaces, so you get graph-aware results through UI you already know:

• ⌘T / Ctrl+T — Go to Symbol in Workspace now searches Gortex's BM25 index across every tracked repo, not just the open folder. Find a symbol in any of your indexed repos with one shortcut.
• Call Hierarchy — right-click any function → Show Call Hierarchy opens VS Code's native panel, populated from Gortex's get_callers (incoming) and get_call_chain (outgoing).
• Blast-radius webview (⌘K B) — interactive panel grouped by ring depth, click any node to navigate to the file.

Native integrations (opt-in)

These shadow your language server, so they're off by default — turn each on individually:

• gortex.references.enabled — ⇧F12 Find All References via find_usages (zero false positives, cross-repo).
• gortex.implementations.enabled — ⌘F12 Go to Implementations via find_implementations.
• gortex.hover.enabled — hover any symbol → "X callers · Y dependents · Z usages" with clickable links.
• gortex.codeLens.enabled — inline "X callers · Y dependents" above every function declaration.

Ambient enrichment (on by default)

Graph-aware information shows up where you're already looking — no commands required:

• Inlay hints — faint 12c · 28d after every function declaration.
• Symbol Insight panel — third tree view in the Gortex sidebar that updates with the cursor. Live Callers / Usages / Blast radius / Implementations for whatever you're looking at.
• Cursor status bar — second status-bar item showing the symbol under the cursor and its counts.
• Occurrence underlines — cursor lands on a symbol → every occurrence across the workspace gets a subtle underline (built-in only covers the open file).
• Gutter icons — 🔥 next to hotspots, 💀 next to dead-code candidates. Dead-code skulls are restricted to top-level definitional kinds (function, method, type, interface) — params, closures, struct fields, npm modules, extracted strings, and the like are filtered out because the graph can't always evaluate them as a "dead?" question. The daemon ships this filter by default and the extension applies the same filter as defense-in-depth. Pass include_fields=true / include_constants=true to the daemon's analyze kind=dead_code if you want the lower-signal kinds back.
• File-tree + tab decorations — color tint and badge per file based on hotspot density.

Turn any of these off in Settings → Gortex if they're too noisy for your workflow.

Problems-panel insights (opt-in)

Enable gortex.analyzeDiagnostics.enabled to surface dead code, hotspots, and dependency cycles as info-level diagnostics in the Problems panel.

Commands (palette: Gortex: …)

Every command is available via the Command Palette (⌘⇧P / Ctrl+Shift+P, then start typing Gortex: …). The most common four also have chord keyboard shortcuts:

About chord shortcuts. A chord is two keystrokes in sequence — not pressed together. For ⌘K G: hold ⌘ and tap K, release both, then tap G on its own. VS Code shows "(⌘K) was pressed. Waiting for second key of chord…" at the bottom of the screen between the two presses — that's confirmation you got the first half right. If you accidentally hit ⇧⌘K instead of ⌘K, VS Code will delete the current line; that's a built-in shortcut, not us.

Prefer non-chord shortcuts? Open File → Preferences → Keyboard Shortcuts, search gortex, click the pencil next to the command, and press whatever combo you want. The commands always work from the palette too — the chord defaults are just a convenience.

Settings

URL-handler install

You can also install via VS Code's MCP URL handler — useful for "install" buttons on docs pages:

vscode:mcp/install?%7B%22name%22%3A%22gortex%22%2C%22command%22%3A%22gortex%22%2C%22args%22%3A%5B%22mcp%22%5D%7D

Develop

npm install
npm run watch        # TypeScript watch mode

Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host with this extension loaded.

Package + publish

npm run package      # → gortex-<version>.vsix
npm run publish      # requires `vsce login Gortex`

License

MIT — see LICENSE.