ContextLens VS Code Extension

ContextLens is a powerful AI-driven developer companion that captures your coding intent and context as you work, providing seamless integration with the ContextLens Dashboard for deep project insights, active file context tracking, and automated summarization.

VS Code UI & Integration

The extension integrates tightly into your VS Code workspace to provide a distraction-free context tracking environment:

• Dedicated Sidebar Panel (contextlens-explorer): Easily accessible from the Activity Bar, this sidebar consolidates your entire tracking workflow.
• State Header Tree View (contextlens.stateTree): Provides real-time visibility into your active project, current tracking episode, the current branch, and your overall sync status.
• AI Chat Webview (contextlens.chatView): An integrated interactive chat interface that leverages your preferred AI models to answer questions, write diffs, and explain file differences in real-time.
• Interactive Title Menu Actions: Quick-action buttons in the view headers let you open the web dashboard in one click.

Extension Features

Episode-Based Intent Tracking

Organize your coding context cleanly by starting discrete tracking episodes. Grouping changes by feature branch or specific task ensures clean history and accurate summaries.

AI-Powered Context Capture

Automatically captures file diffs and active file context during AI assistant interactions, tracking code changes and intent continuously.

Seamless Auth Sync

Integrated authentication utilizing secure callbacks (vscode://Noventra-Labs.contextlens) connecting Firebase Auth directly from the web dashboard.

Deep Dashboard Integration

Instant navigation hooks to open your specific projects, active branches, or episodes directly in the web dashboard for deep timeline inspection.

⌨ Keyboard Shortcuts & Keybindings

Quickly manage your tracking states without leaving your code editor using global shortcuts:

(Shortcut customization can be toggled via the contextlens.enableShortcuts settings entry.)

Configuration Settings

Configure extension behaviors through the standard VS Code Settings (Ctrl+,):

• contextlens.enableShortcuts (boolean, default: true): Enable global keyboard shortcuts for starting and ending episodes.
• contextlens.apiUrl (string, default: https://us-central1-contextlens-backend-001.cloudfunctions.net/api): The base URL pointing to your ContextLens backend APIs.
• contextlens.firebaseApiKey (string, default: empty): Firebase Web API key used for custom-token exchange and token refresh. Leave blank in published builds. Set this in your VS Code settings.json only for local development. Production builds inject the key at build time via the FIREBASE_API_KEY environment variable (see "Building" below).
• contextlens.tokenRefreshMinutes (number, default: 45, range: 5–55): How often the extension proactively refreshes the Firebase ID token. Must stay under the 60-minute Firebase ID-token TTL.

Building

Production .vsix packages require a Firebase Web API key at build time. Set the FIREBASE_API_KEY environment variable before running npm run package:

# In a `.env.production` file (gitignored), or:
export FIREBASE_API_KEY="AIza…"
npm run package

Webpack's DefinePlugin inlines the value as __FIREBASE_API_KEY__ in the bundled output. If the variable is unset, the build prints a warning and the bundled extension will throw on sign-in until the key is provided via contextlens.firebaseApiKey in VS Code settings (dev only).

Command Palette Commands (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P)

Access the full suite of ContextLens utilities from the VS Code command line:

• ContextLens: Sign In — Log in to synchronize local context to the cloud.
• ContextLens: Sign Out — Log out from active workspace sync.
• ContextLens: New Episode — Initialize a new tracking episode.
• ContextLens: Close Episode — Complete and close the current episode.
• ContextLens: Explain Diff — Query the AI companion to explain active file changes.
• ContextLens: Summarize Branch — Generate a branch-level summary.
• ContextLens: Open Dashboard — Open the main web dashboard interface.
• ContextLens: Configure AI Provider — Customize your active LLM and provider configurations.

Extension Metadata

• Categories: Programming Languages, Data Science, Machine Learning
• Keywords: ai, context, gemini, tracking, developer-productivity

Development Guide

If you are contributing to or testing the extension:

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v16.x or higher)
• npm

Setup

cd vscode-extension
npm install

Running in Host

1. Open the vscode-extension workspace folder in VS Code.
2. Press F5 or navigate to the Run and Debug tab to start a new Extension Development Host sandbox window.

Compiling & Packaging

# Compiles the TypeScript source using Webpack
npm run compile

# Packages the extension as a local .vsix installer
npm run package

License

MIT © ContextLens