Kill Stack

Kill Stack is a VS Code extension for finding and shutting down forgotten local dev servers without leaving your editor.

It gives you a live process count in the status bar, a dashboard for reviewing active local services, and one-click controls for cleaning them up when you are done.

Why Use Kill Stack

• See which local servers are still running
• Inspect process details before killing anything
• Shut down individual processes or clear everything at once
• Optionally kill leftover servers when VS Code closes

What You Get

Status Bar Signal

Kill Stack adds a live status bar button that shows whether local server processes are running. Click it to open the dashboard.

• Grey: no local server processes detected
• Green: one or more local server processes detected

Dashboard

The dashboard helps you review what is running before you take action.

Each process is shown in its own card so it is easier to distinguish similar local servers.

Commands

Kill On Exit

Kill Stack can clean up local server processes when VS Code closes.

• On macOS, the extension prompts before killing processes
• On Windows and Linux, processes are killed on exit without a blocking prompt
• You can toggle this setting from the dashboard. This feature is OFF by default

Settings

Detection Scope

Kill Stack is built to detect common local development processes across multiple runtimes and tools, including:

• Node-based dev servers
• Python local servers
• PHP built-in servers
• Ruby app servers
• Common Java and Go local server patterns
• ngrok
• cloudflared

It is designed for real-world local development workflows, not as a guarantee that every custom process pattern will be detected.

Getting Started

After installing Kill Stack, open the dashboard from the status bar or run Kill Stack: Open Dashboard from the Command Palette.

From there you can:

• review active local server processes
• kill individual processes
• kill everything in one action
• turn Kill On Exit on or off

Platform Support

License

MIT