OpenCode for VS Code

This is not an official OpenCode extension. It is an independent, community-built integration: it is not published, endorsed, or supported by the OpenCode team. It exists because OpenCode is a great way to work with a coding agent, and many people already spend their day in VS Code.

The extension is deliberately a thin shell around the real @opencode/app interface, so it can be adopted upstream without a rewrite. If the OpenCode maintainers want to publish an official VS Code extension, take this one over, or move it into the OpenCode repository, that would be very welcome.

The full OpenCode coding agent in a VS Code sidebar. Point it at an OpenCode server, or let it start one in your workspace. Same interface as the desktop and web app, same sessions, same models, with the editor as the place where you read and write the code.

What you get

• The full OpenCode GUI in the activity bar, or in an editor tab beside your code.
• Editor context without copy-paste: the current selection becomes an attachment, and files open in editor tabs are offered as one-click chips above the prompt.
• File links in a message (src/foo.ts:12, ../plan.md#L3-L9) open in VS Code at the right line.
• Workspace-aware sessions: one folder runs in that folder, several folders run in their common ancestor, and the project is named after your workspace.
• The server password lives in VS Code Secret Storage, never in settings.
• Keybindings for the common moves, a gear button in the view title bar to switch servers and sign out, and an OpenCode output channel that says what the extension did.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.94 or newer.

• Either an OpenCode 2 server, or the OpenCode 2 CLI on the machine where VS Code's UI runs. With no server URL set, the extension starts opencode serve itself in the window's folder, with a random password for that process. The CLI is looked up on PATH and in ~/.opencode/bin.

  To run a server yourself instead, start it where your project lives:

  opencode serve --hostname 127.0.0.1 --port 4096
  

  Use --hostname 0.0.0.0 when VS Code runs in another machine, container, or Remote-SSH window that must reach the server. Set OPENCODE_PASSWORD when the server requires a password.

  The extension needs OpenCode 2, not 1.x. When no version 2 binary is found it offers to run the installer from the OpenCode site in a terminal (curl -fsSL https://opencode.ai/v2/install | bash, or npm install -g @opencode/cli on Windows) and checks again when that terminal closes.

The GUI is built from the @opencode/app version in this repository. On activation the extension compares the server's /api/info with that version and warns when the major or minor version differs, because the client protocol moves with the server. Rebuild the extension when you upgrade the server.

Getting started

1. Install the extension from the marketplace, or from a VSIX: code --install-extension opencode-client-for-vs-code-0.1.0.vsix.
2. Click the OpenCode icon in the activity bar, or run OpenCode: Open.
3. With no opencode.serverUrl set, the extension starts a local server and connects to it. No setup is needed when the opencode CLI is already on the machine.
4. To use a server elsewhere, run OpenCode: Configure Server and enter its URL, for example http://127.0.0.1:4096, and the password if it has one. The form checks the server before handing over to the GUI. Submitting an empty URL goes back to a local server.

A pasted http://user:pass@host:4096 is split on save: the URL goes to settings, the password goes to Secret Storage, and the username you gave is used for Basic auth (opencode when you leave it out).

The view opens by itself on first run when there is nothing to connect to: no local OpenCode and no server URL. Set opencode.openOnStartup to true if you want it to open on every start.

Switching servers and signing out

Click the gear in the view title bar, the status bar, or run OpenCode: Switch Server, and pick:

• This machine — the server the extension starts in the window's folder.
• The configured server — the remote URL from settings, with its saved password.
• Add a server… — opens the form to enter another URL.
• Sign out of … — forgets that server's password but keeps its URL, so the form can sign in again.

Passwords are stored per server origin in Secret Storage, so switching between the local server and a remote one never reuses the other credential. Signing out of the local server does nothing: its password is random, lives in memory, and dies with the process.

Commands

Shortcuts, in the editor only:

The status bar shows OpenCode <version> when /api/info answers, OpenCode: offline when it does not, OpenCode: install when no OpenCode 2 binary is on the machine, and OpenCode: no server when neither a URL nor a local server is available. Clicking it opens the server picker. Returning focus to VS Code also retries the check, so a restarted server comes back without a reload; a repeated failure is reported once, not on every focus.

Editor context

Attaching the selection needs no gesture: selecting code in a file editor hands it to the routed chat after 400 ms of quiet, the way Copilot adds the current selection as implicit context. A drag counts as one selection, the chat is never revealed (the editor keeps focus), and the same lines attach once.

The composer lane shows one greyed chip per file open in the editor, the active one first and brighter. Clicking a chip attaches that whole file to the prompt and the chip goes away. A file already attached as a card above the prompt is no longer offered, and removing the card offers it again.

Workspaces and projects

A chat runs in the window's folders, and that directory is what the GUI opens Home and new chats in, ahead of whichever project was used last anywhere else.

• One folder is the directory, and the project keeps the folder's name.
• Several folders have no directory of their own, so the chat runs in their common ancestor, named after the workspace: the name a .code-workspace declares, else its file name (shop.code-workspace becomes shop). Folders with no common directory fall back to the workspace file's folder, then to the first folder; the filesystem root is never used.
• With no folder open, the chat runs in the active file's folder.
• A project you renamed by hand keeps your name.

Adding or removing a folder reloads the GUI, because the directory it runs in moved.

Settings

How it works

• dist/host is the real @opencode/app GUI built from source, served on 127.0.0.1:<port>.
• The webview is a thin page that hosts the GUI in an iframe and relays messages.
• The extension only connects to a server; when opencode.serverUrl is empty it starts one itself: opencode serve --stdio --port 0 in the window's folder, with a random password for that process. The server exits when its stdin closes, so closing the window or deactivating the extension leaves no stray process.

The GUI needs a real HTTP origin. The server's CORS allows http://127.0.0.1:* but not vscode-webview://, so the asset server exists. This is a ui extension, so the extension and the webview run on the same machine: URLs are used as-is and are never rewritten through vscode.env.asExternalUri, which in Remote-SSH would tunnel them to the remote host where no asset server runs.

A path the agent writes in a message opens in VS Code at that line range through a GUI plugin this build adds beside the app's built-ins. The plugin is aliased over @opencode/gui-plugins/renderer in vite.config.ts, so packages/app and packages/gui-plugins stay untouched. The path is mapped into the editor's workspace folders (including a session that sits in a subdirectory), then, when nothing matches, looked up by suffix in the editor's own index, so a link written from a subdirectory (config/application.php for core/config/application.php) still opens. A URL, a file:// link and an absolute path outside the workspace stay with the GUI's file panel, and the extension warns when it cannot find the file on its machine.

AI-assisted development

This extension was developed with heavy AI assistance: the OpenCode coding agent itself wrote most of the implementation, tests and documentation, under human direction and review. Every change was built, type-checked, tested and installed from the packaged VSIX before it landed.

Read the source before trusting it with a password or with unattended commands. Treat it as an early, fast-moving project rather than a vetted one.

Troubleshooting

Open Output: OpenCode (View > Output, then choose "OpenCode"). It logs the port the GUI is served on, the result of every server check, and the project it named.

• The view is blank. The GUI is not built. Run bun run build:host in packages/vscode.
• OpenCode: install. No OpenCode 2 CLI was found on PATH or in ~/.opencode/bin. Click the status bar, then Install, or run OpenCode: Install OpenCode 2. The installer opens in a terminal; the extension checks again when that terminal closes. A 1.x binary is reported the same way, and the installer adds 2 next to it.
• OpenCode: offline. The server is not reachable from the machine where VS Code's UI runs. In Remote-SSH, that is your local machine: use a URL the local machine can reach, or forward the port.
• The password is rejected. Run OpenCode: Sign Out of Server, then OpenCode: Configure Server and enter it again.
• A version warning. The GUI and the server are from different releases. Rebuild the extension against the same @opencode/app version, or upgrade the server.

Building from source

cd packages/vscode
bun run build          # GUI (vite) + extension (esbuild)
bun run typecheck      # extension and host sources
bun test test
bun run package        # opencode-client-for-vs-code-0.1.0.vsix
code --install-extension opencode-client-for-vs-code-0.1.0.vsix

To iterate instead, open packages/vscode in VS Code, press F5, then run OpenCode: Configure Server from the palette.

Privacy

The extension talks to the server you configure and nowhere else. Chat content, files, and credentials are handled by that server, the same way they are in the desktop and web app. The password is stored in VS Code Secret Storage, not in settings.json.

License and trademark

MIT. See LICENSE.

OpenCode and the OpenCode logo belong to the OpenCode project. They are used here only to describe what this extension connects to. This extension is not affiliated with or endorsed by the OpenCode team; see the notice at the top of this page.