nlpilot — VS Code Extension

A GitHub Copilot-style AI coding assistant for Visual Studio Code, powered by the nlpilot CLI. Brings chat, inline chat, ghost-text completions, and smart code actions directly into the editor — all backed by the same models and sessions as the CLI.

Requirements

• Visual Studio Code 1.91.0 or later
• Sign in with nlpilot: Sign In after installing the extension

Installation

From source

cd nlpilot-vscode-extension
bun install
cd webview && bun install && cd ..

# Build both extension host and webview
bun run build

# Launch in Extension Development Host
# Press F5 in VS Code with this folder open

Package as .vsix

bun run package
# Outputs: nlpilot-vscode-0.0.1.vsix

Install the .vsix via Extensions: Install from VSIX… in the Command Palette.

Getting Started

1. Sign in — open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and run nlpilot: Sign In, or run nlpilot login in a terminal
2. Open the chat panel — press Ctrl+Alt+C or click the nlpilot icon in the Activity Bar
3. Start chatting — type a message and press Enter

If you haven't run nlpilot login yet the extension shows a "Sign In" notification and surfaces an error in the chat panel.

Features

Chat Panel (Sidebar)

A full React-based chat interface in the VS Code side panel, backed by the nlpilot CLI engine.

• Streaming token-by-token responses
• Markdown rendering with syntax-highlighted code blocks (via streamdown + shiki)
• Full list/heading/table rendering via @tailwindcss/typography prose styles
• Tool-call chips showing which tools the agent invoked
• Cancel in-flight requests with the stop button
• Auto-scroll with a scroll-to-bottom button when you're reading history
• Context pill showing the active file or selected line range
• Model badge in the footer showing the active model
• New Chat button to start a fresh session

Open with: Ctrl+Alt+C / Command Palette → nlpilot: Open nlpilot Chat

Native Chat Participant (@nlpilot)

nlpilot registers as a participant in VS Code's built-in Chat panel (alongside GitHub Copilot).

@nlpilot explain the authentication flow
@nlpilot /fix there's a type error on line 42
@nlpilot /tests cover all edge cases

Slash commands

Context variables

Attach context directly in the chat input:

Follow-up suggestions

After each response, the participant returns 2–3 contextual follow-up prompts you can click to continue the conversation.

Inline Chat (Cmd+I / Ctrl+I)

A floating input that appears directly inside the editor, similar to Copilot's inline chat.

• Select code and press Cmd+I / Ctrl+I to open
• Captures the selection and ±50 lines of surrounding context
• Streams the response diff back as text-edit replacements
• Accept / Reject / Retry controls in the inline widget
• /fix shorthand — automatically triggered on diagnostic squiggles with Diagnose and fix with nlpilot quick action
• /edit free-form instruction — applies the agent's diff to the selection

Ghost-Text Inline Completions

Tab-completion ghost text as you type, similar to Copilot's completions.

• Works in all languages (*)
• 300 ms debounce after each keystroke before triggering
• Builds a prompt from: file language, path, last 100 lines (prefix), next 20 lines (suffix)
• Always uses the fastest/cheapest model (claude-3-haiku) to keep latency low
• LRU cache of the last 20 completions keyed by prefix hash
• "Generating…" spinner in the status bar while a request is in flight

Toggle with: Command Palette → nlpilot: Toggle Inline Completions

Smart Code Actions (Lightbulb / Right-click)

The extension registers code actions for all files that appear in the lightbulb menu and the right-click context menu.

Editor title toolbar also shows ⚡ buttons to open Inline Chat and fix diagnostics.

Session Management

Sessions are stored at ~/.nlpilot/sessions/<cwdHash>/ — the same files the CLI uses, so history is shared between terminal and editor.

Sessions tree view

The Sessions panel in the nlpilot Activity Bar sidebar shows all sessions for the current workspace:

• Click a session to load it into the chat panel
• Rename sessions with the pencil icon
• Delete sessions with the trash icon
• Refresh the list with the refresh icon

New Chat

Click the + button in the chat panel toolbar or run nlpilot: New Chat Session to start a fresh session. This posts a NEW_SESSION message to the webview and calls sessionStore.newSession().

Compact

Click the compact button or use @nlpilot /compact to summarise the conversation history. The CLI is invoked with /compact and the result replaces the messages array with a concise summary.

Settings

All settings live under the nlpilot.* namespace in VS Code settings (Ctrl+,).

Open settings: Command Palette → nlpilot: Configure nlpilot Settings

Commands

All commands are accessible from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) under the nlpilot category.

Status Bar

The status bar (right side) shows:

• Active model name — click to open the model picker
• Spinner while a completion or chat response is in flight
• "Not signed in" warning when credentials are missing

Local Telemetry

nlpilot logs usage locally to ~/.nlpilot/stats.json — no data leaves your machine. Logged metrics include session counts, tool-call counts, and error types. Telemetry is automatically disabled when VS Code's telemetry.telemetryLevel is set to off.

Architecture

nlpilot-vscode-extension/
├── src/
│   ├── extension.ts                # Activation entry point
│   ├── agent/
│   │   └── NlpilotParticipant.ts   # @nlpilot chat participant + slash commands
│   ├── bridge/
│   │   ├── NlpilotProcess.ts       # Spawns CLI as a child process + retry logic
│   │   ├── UIMessageStreamAdapter.ts  # CLI NDJSON → ReadableStream<UIMessageChunk>
│   │   ├── PostMessageStreamAdapter.ts # Extension → webview postMessage bridge
│   │   ├── CredentialsBridge.ts    # Reads ~/.nlpilot/credentials
│   │   └── types.ts                # SpawnOptions, NlpilotBridgeChunk types
│   ├── completion/
│   │   └── InlineCompletionProvider.ts  # Ghost-text completions
│   ├── context/
│   │   └── ContextResolver.ts      # #file, #selection, #codebase, #problems resolvers
│   ├── inline/
│   │   └── InlineChatHandler.ts    # Cmd+I inline chat
│   ├── actions/
│   │   └── NlpilotCodeActionsProvider.ts  # Fix/Explain/Tests/Docs lightbulb actions
│   ├── session/
│   │   ├── SessionStore.ts         # Session read/write (~/.nlpilot/sessions/)
│   │   └── SessionTreeProvider.ts  # Sessions sidebar tree view
│   ├── status/
│   │   └── StatusBarManager.ts     # Model name + spinner status bar item
│   ├── telemetry/
│   │   └── LocalTelemetry.ts       # Local-only stats logging
│   └── views/
│       ├── ChatWebviewProvider.ts  # Sidebar webview panel host
│       └── SidebarStubs.ts         # MCP + placeholder tree views
└── webview/                        # React + Vite UI
    └── src/
        ├── App.tsx                 # Root component, useChat wiring
        ├── main.tsx                # Webview entry point
        ├── index.css               # Tailwind v4 + VS Code theme CSS variables
        ├── lib/
        │   ├── utils.ts            # cn() helper
        │   └── vscode.ts           # acquireVsCodeApi() singleton
        └── components/
            ├── ContextPill.tsx     # Active file / selection badge above input
            ├── ModelBadge.tsx      # Active model name in footer
            ├── ModeSelector.tsx    # Ask / Plan / Autopilot toggle (deferred)
            ├── CommandMenu.tsx     # Slash-command quick pick in input
            ├── ToolCallChip.tsx    # Tool invocation chip in message stream
            └── ai-elements/        # AI chat UI components
                ├── conversation.tsx  # StickToBottom scroll container
                ├── message.tsx       # Message bubble + Streamdown renderer
                ├── prompt-input.tsx  # Input area with submit / cancel
                ├── code-block.tsx    # Syntax-highlighted code block
                ├── reasoning.tsx     # Collapsible thinking / reasoning block
                ├── tool.tsx          # Tool-call + result accordion
                ├── confirmation.tsx  # Tool approval modal
                └── ...

Communication flow

User input (webview)
  │  postMessage SEND_MESSAGE
  ▼
ChatWebviewProvider (extension host)
  │  spawnWithRetry(opts) → NlpilotProcess
  ▼
nlpilot CLI child process
  │  NDJSON lines on stdout
  ▼
UIMessageStreamAdapter → ReadableStream<UIMessageChunk>
  │  postMessage NLPILOT_CHUNK (per frame)
  ▼
Webview VsCodePostMessageTransport → useChat (AI SDK React)
  │  incremental state updates
  ▼
Rendered conversation (React)

Shared State with the CLI

The extension reads and writes the same files as the CLI so both stay in sync:

License

MIT