⚒️ Grok Forge — the unofficial Grok app for VS Code

Forge whatever you decide you want to make. Images through Imagine. Code through Grok Build. All from friendly chat tabs in VS Code — running on your own Grok subscription, with the terminal kept completely out of sight.

Unofficial. Grok Forge is a community project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by xAI. "Grok" is a trademark of xAI. This extension is simply a friendly window onto the official Grok Build CLI that you install and sign into yourself.

🆕 What's new in 0.9 — "Parity II"

Plan mode — read the plan before Grok changes anything. A Plan pill in the chat title bar flips Grok into planning: it investigates your code and writes up what it intends to do instead of doing it. The plan arrives as a card you can actually read, and nothing is edited until you approve — then Grok switches back and carries it out. Toggle it mid-conversation for the one risky change and come straight back out. Connect your own tools (MCP) with the new Manage MCP Servers command — Forge connects to each server itself first, reads back every tool it offers, and shows you the list to approve; only servers you approve ever reach Grok, and if one later changes its tools the approval is void. Grok reads your AGENTS.md project rules, and a live activity panel shows the tools it's running as it runs them, so a long turn is no longer a blank wait. Plus a security pass: hidden characters are stripped from what Grok reads, permission cards show the verbatim command, destructive commands stay carded even on auto-approve, and a per-turn tool-call brake stops runaway loops. Full details on the Changelog tab.

🆕 What's new in 0.8 — "Checkpoints & Speed"

Checkpoints — a safety net for letting Grok edit. Every message you send now snapshots your project first. A clock button in the chat title bar lists every turn; click one and your files roll back to exactly how they were before it — an edit undone, a deleted file restored, a file Grok created removed. It reverts files only (your conversation with Grok stays exactly as it is) and never touches your own Git history or your .gitignored secrets. @-mention files too: type @ in the message box to filter your project's files and attach one as context, so "explain @thing.ts" just works — with secrets never shown or attachable. Plus a faster first message (Grok warms up in the background while you read and type) and a smaller install. Full details on the Changelog tab.

🆕 What's new in 0.7.5 — "Polish"

A bigger, cleaner media viewer. Open a tall image or clip in a wide window and the viewer now splits into three columns — actions on the left, the media centred and filling the full height, caption and Refine on the right — instead of a narrow strip with wide black margins. The clip gets about two-thirds more area, the description shows in full, and it flips back to the familiar stacked layout on narrow panels automatically as you resize. Plus a history button in the chat title bar to jump straight to any past conversation, a Stop button that stays reachable from inside the viewer, and a round of security hardening — Grok no longer inherits your whole environment (including your SSH agent). Full details on the Changelog tab.

🆕 What's new in 0.7

Video. Every generated image now carries a ▶ badge — click it, pick 6 or 10 seconds, and watch the video appear right where you're looking: a spinner with a live second-count runs on the image itself, then the finished clip replaces it in place. Nothing closes, nothing kicks you back to the chat, and the conversation stays clean — no repeated photos, no restated requests. Open a clip and describe the motion in plain English ("camera cranes up", "360° orbit") to re-animate it, or use the ✨ Suggestions picker (Camera · Lighting · Mood · Style) in either composer. A photo and everything made from it now share one gallery tile: the grid shows the newest version, ‹ › flips across tiles and ↑ ↓ walks a tile's history back to the original.

0.7 also ships a security hardening pass: credential files (~/.ssh/id_rsa, .aws/credentials, .netrc, .npmrc, .env*) are refused for reads and writes, and Grok is now confined to your project folder — with no folder open it works in a private contained folder instead of your entire home directory. Every file action is re-checked before it runs. Details, and one honest known limitation about Grok's own shell, are on the Changelog tab (or CHANGELOG.md).

What you get

• 💬 Multi-chat in real editor tabs — the anvil icon opens a sidebar hub; start a new chat or reopen a past one and it opens as its own editor tab. Live streaming responses, a model picker, and a chat · plan · build · imagine cue so you always know what Grok is set up to do.
• 🗂️ Local chat history — conversations are saved on your machine; reopen or delete them from the sidebar hub. Nothing leaves your device.
• 🎨 A real image workflow — ask Grok to imagine something and results arrive as compact cards. Click an image to expand it with its exact generation prompt beneath it and ‹ › arrows to flip through the batch; refine the one you're viewing from right there. Each card opens its own per-batch gallery. Right-click any image for Copy / Save As… / Open / Show in Finder / Save to assets/ (with optional ASSETS.md logging for license tracking). Images are detected from disk, so it works no matter how Grok phrases its output.
• 📎 Attach & paste — attach files to a message, @-mention a workspace file to filter and attach it inline, paste a screenshot straight from the clipboard, and click any image to expand it in a lightbox.
• ↩️ Checkpoints — every turn snapshots your project, so you can rewind your files to before any message with one click. Files only — your conversation stays put, and your own Git history and .gitignored secrets are never touched.
• 📋 Plan mode — flip the Plan pill and Grok proposes an approvable plan before it changes a thing. Approve and it executes; toggle back out whenever you like.
• 🔌 Your own tools via MCP — add MCP servers from Manage MCP Servers. Forge vets each one itself and shows you every tool before it approves, and a server that changes its tools has to ask again.
• 📐 Project rules — Grok picks up your AGENTS.md house rules automatically; the Project Rules (AGENTS.md) command will scaffold one if you don't have it.
• ⏱️ Never looks frozen — a live "Grok is working… Ns" timer that settles into "took Ns" when the turn finishes.
• 🔐 Your subscription, your machine — everything runs through the official Grok Build CLI locally. No keys to paste, no third-party servers in between.
• 🛡️ Real permission prompts — when Grok wants to act, you get big Allow/Deny buttons (or flip on auto-approve in settings if you like to live fast).
• ♿ Accessibility-first — large click targets, high contrast, dictation button, zero drag-and-drop, zero required keyboard shortcuts. Designed from day one for single-click (including BCI) use.

Getting started

1. Install this extension.
2. Click the ⚒️ anvil icon in the activity bar.
3. No Grok Build CLI yet? The welcome screen installs it for you — one button runs the official installer (curl -fsSL https://x.ai/cli/install.sh | bash), another runs grok login so you can sign in with your subscription.
4. Click New chat in the hub — it opens as an editor tab. Chat, imagine, forge.

Settings

How it works

Grok Forge speaks the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) to a persistent grok agent stdio session — the same architecture the official Claude Code and Zed integrations use to talk to their CLIs. The extension is a thin, friendly cockpit; the CLI does the flying.

License

MIT. Not affiliated with xAI — see the disclaimer above.