OpenCode Buddy

A VS Code extension that brings the opencode agent into a full chat GUI. The original motivation was that the existing VS Code opencode plugin was too difficult to use, and the cc-gui open source project was found on GitHub. It is a greenfield port of the IntelliJ plugin jetbrains-cc-gui: the React webview is carried over verbatim, the Java backend is rewritten in TypeScript, and only the opencode provider is kept (Claude / Codex / Grok / Kimi / PI branches removed).

Unlike the original plugin — which spawned a fresh opencode run for every message — this extension keeps a persistent opencode serve daemon (via @opencode-ai/sdk) alive across all tabs and conversations, managed by a daemon bridge with prewarm, heartbeat, crash-restart, and session reuse.

Philosophy

jetbrains-cc-gui aims to provide a unified experience across different AI providers. This project takes a different approach — it reuses opencode's capabilities without secondary development, focusing on providing a native GUI experience for opencode.

Development Tools

This project is primarily developed with AI assistance:

• AI Tools: OpenCode (primary), Claude Code, WorkBuddy
• AI Models: Deepseek-v4-flash (primary), Deepseek-v4-pro, MiMo V2.5, Ox Alpha, hy4, hy3

Most development used free tiers. Deepseek cost was 65.34 CNY.

Features

• Persistent opencode daemon — no per-message process spawn. opencode serve is prewarmed on activation, reused across requests, and auto-restarted on crash (≤3 attempts).
• Two chat surfaces — an activity-bar panel (left) and a secondary-sidebar panel (right), plus multi-tab editor sessions (each tab is an independent createWebviewPanel with its own conversation).
• Full cc-gui UI — streaming text / thinking / tool calls with diffs, model / mode / slash-command selectors, token-usage circle, attachments and file context, conversation history, MCP servers, agent/skill/prompt management, permission / question / plan-approval dialogs, and a settings panel.
• opencode-only — the webview, host handlers, and CLI tooling are trimmed to opencode.

Usage

1. Open the chat panel

After installing the extension, click the OpenCode icon in the VS Code sidebar to open the chat panel. You can also run OpenCode: 在编辑器分栏打开 OpenCode from the command palette to open an independent tab in an editor split — each tab has its own conversation.

The screenshot shows the UI in Simplified Chinese.

UI layout:

• Top tabs — 聊天 / Claude Code / Codex / OpenCode to switch between conversations.
• Top-right — new conversation / search / history / settings.
• Bottom bar:
  • 任务 / 子代理 / 编辑 — switch input mode.
  • Build — select the working mode (Build / Plan, etc.).
  • Model selector — pick the current model (e.g. Nemotron-3.5-Lightning-Free).
  • Reasoning depth — e.g. medium, controls how deeply the model thinks.
• Input box — @filename attaches files, /bash ... runs shell commands, /opencode ... runs opencode commands. Enter sends.

2. Personalise settings

Click the gear icon in the top-right of the chat panel to open the settings page:

基础配置 → 外观 tab. UI labels are localised to Simplified Chinese in this screenshot.

基础配置 → Appearance main options:

The settings page also has 外观 / 行为 / 环境 tabs at the top — Behaviour and Environment configure the agent and runtime behaviour respectively.

Requirements

• opencode CLI installed and on PATH (Settings → Providers → CLI shows its install status; the plugin never auto-installs binaries).
• A working Node.js runtime — the extension host spawns the daemon via process.execPath (Electron-as-node).

Development

Package manager is pnpm. The repo has three parts, each with its own dependencies:

The webview build emits a single-file bundle to dist/webview/index.html; the extension host bundle is dist/extension.js (CJS). Press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host.

Commands (extension host)

Commands (webview)

Architecture

webview/ (React SPA)  ⇄  src/ extension host (TS)  ⇄  ai-bridge/daemon.js (Node ESM)
                            │                              └─ @opencode-ai/sdk ─ opencode serve (persistent)
                            ├─ src/host/router/*        — "type:content" wire protocol
                            ├─ src/host/handlers/*      — one handler per message type (incl. permission)
                            ├─ src/host/session/*       — OpenCodeSession, marker parser/merger
                            ├─ src/host/provider/*      — OpenCodeDaemonBridge (NDJSON + heartbeat)
                            ├─ src/host/tabs/*          — multi-tab panels (TabManager)
                            ├─ src/host/settings/*      — SettingsService + TabStateService (workspaceState)
                            ├─ src/host/services/*      — McpConfigService, SkillService, etc.
                            ├─ src/host/context/*       — EditorContextTracker
                            ├─ src/host/notifications/* — NotificationService
                            └─ src/host/fonts/*         — SystemFontEnumerator

• The webview talks to the host with sendToJava("type:content"); the host replies via postMessage({ type: fn, args }) calling window[fn](https://github.com/SenjuObito/opencode-vscode-plugin/blob/HEAD/...args). All webview panels (left sidebar, right sidebar, editor split) share the same BroadcastChannel.
• ai-bridge/daemon.js speaks NDJSON over stdio: {id, method, params} requests, {id, line} streaming output, {type:'daemon', event} lifecycle events. The host request is non-blocking. Concurrent requests use AsyncLocalStorage for context isolation.
• The extension host (src/host/) mirrors cc-gui's Java module layout: router/, handlers/, session/, provider/, settings/, tabs/, util/, services/, context/, notifications/, fonts/.

Support

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the original project jetbrains-cc-gui. Please give it a star and consider supporting the original author.

Sponsor

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