CLI Inspector — Neuron Cloud (VSCode extension)
An interactive neuron tag-cloud of your most-used shell command lines, right
inside VSCode. Each node is a full command line (command + arguments); size and
colour scale with how often you've run it. Click a node to copy the full command
to your clipboard and see where it was run.
This is a TypeScript port of the standalone cli_inspector.py script — it needs
no Python and works in any workspace.
Commands
Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and run:
| Command |
What it does |
| CLI Inspector: Show Neuron Cloud |
Visualize your entire shell history. |
| CLI Inspector: Show Neuron Cloud (this workspace only) |
Only commands recorded as running inside the open workspace folder. |
| CLI Inspector: Pick History File… |
Choose the history file manually and save it to settings. |
History source
By default the extension auto-detects your shell history:
$HISTFILE — if your shell exports one, it always wins.- Windows — PSReadLine
…\Microsoft\Windows\PowerShell\PSReadLine\ConsoleHost_history.txt
- macOS —
~/.zsh_history, ~/.zhistory, ~/.histfile, then ~/.bash_history, then fish
- Linux —
~/.bash_history first, then the zsh files, then fish
When several of those exist (a Mac usually has a stale ~/.bash_history next to
a live ~/.zsh_history), the most recently written non-empty one is used.
Override it with the cliInspector.source setting (~ is expanded) or the
Pick History File… command if your history lives elsewhere.
History formats
The file layout is sniffed, not assumed:
| Format |
Handled |
| zsh extended history |
: 1690000000:0;git status — the timestamp prefix is stripped, so commands are counted, not timestamps. Entries split across lines with a trailing \ are rejoined. |
| bash |
Plain lines; #1690000000 stamps from HISTTIMEFORMAT are skipped. |
| fish |
The - cmd: entries of fish_history, with \n/\t escapes unfolded. |
| PSReadLine |
Plain lines, with trailing-backtick continuations rejoined. |
zsh also "metafies" non-ASCII bytes when it writes $HISTFILE; those are decoded
back, so accented characters and emoji survive into the cloud.
Virtualenv activations collapse to a single node per style —
source venv/bin/activate on macOS/Linux, .\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1 on
Windows — however they were spelled.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
cliInspector.source |
"" |
Absolute path to the history file. Empty = auto-detect. |
cliInspector.topN |
100 |
Most-frequent commands rendered as large nodes. |
cliInspector.recentN |
300 |
Recent unique commands also included as nodes. |
Controls (in the cloud)
- Click a node — copies the full command, opens a panel with run-count and directories.
/ — focus the search box; matches stay lit, the rest fade.Esc — close the panel / clear the search.
Develop
cd vscode-extension
npm install
npm run compile # or: npm run watch
npm test # parser + source-detection tests
Press F5 in VSCode to launch an Extension Development Host, then run one of
the commands above. Package a .vsix with npx @vscode/vsce package.
How the "where did it run" works
The parser replays cd / Set-Location / pushd / popd commands as it scans
the history, so each command is associated with the directory it most likely ran
in. That's also what powers the (this workspace only) view. Commands with no
cd trail before them show location unknown.
Path handling follows the host platform: POSIX /absolute paths, ~, $HOME,
bare cd (home) and cd - (previous directory) on macOS/Linux; drive letters
and UNC paths on Windows. Workspace matching is case-insensitive on macOS and
Windows, case-sensitive on Linux.
