ActionTracker

A local-first VS Code extension for managing action items, responsibilities (PDCA), documents, benefits, risks, and governance forums—all without leaving your editor.

Installation

Search for ActionTracker in the VS Code Extensions Marketplace, or:

1. Open VS Code
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+X (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+X (Mac) to open Extensions
3. Search for "ActionTracker"
4. Click Install

Getting Started

By default ActionTracker is turned off (to avoid impacting startup time). To enable it:

1. Open Settings
2. Search for ActionTracker
3. Enable actiontracker.enabled

After enabling it, ActionTracker appears in two places:

• Activity Bar: Click the ActionTracker icon to browse your data in tree views
• Panel: The Actions view shows all your action items at a glance

Access Panel (default)

When ActionTracker is enabled, it opens the Access Panel on startup. This is a launcher with buttons for the key dashboards, visual maps, forum views, and common actions.

To reopen it any time:

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+P (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+P (Mac)
2. Run ActionTracker: Open Access Panel

Dashboards

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+P (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+P (Mac)
2. Run ActionTracker: Open Action Dashboard or ActionTracker: Open Data Dashboard
3. Press Enter

Dashboards provide a visual overview of your data with tabs for each type.

Features

📋 Action Items

Track tasks with status (open, in-progress, completed, blocked), priority levels, assignees, due dates, and effort tracking by role.

🧭 Responsibilities (PDCA)

Track ongoing responsibilities through Plan → Do → Check → Act. Responsibilities can be linked to related items (actions, documents, risks, controls, policies, processes, roles, forums) and opened directly from those links.

📄 Documents

Manage documents and references with file paths, URLs, versions, and types (policy, procedure, guideline, report, evidence).

🎯 Benefits

Track project benefits through their lifecycle: idea → planned → in-progress → realized. Categorize as financial, strategic, compliance, customer, risk-reduction, or operational.

👥 Forums

Organize governance meetings with chairs, schedules, attendees, and meeting notes. See which actions belong to each forum.

⚠️ Risks & Controls

Identify risks with likelihood/impact ratings and link them to mitigation controls. Track control effectiveness and review dates.

📜 Policies & Processes

Document organizational policies and operational processes with approval workflows, versions, and status tracking.

👤 Roles

Define organizational roles with responsibilities, permissions, and link them to actions for effort tracking.

📦 Work Packages

Group related actions into work packages with timelines and deliverables.

📌 Requirements (including Directives)

Requirements can be tagged with a Domain for grouping and filtering. To track PSPF directives, set the Requirement Domain to Directives.

• In the Detail View, the Domain field supports free-text and offers autocomplete suggestions (including Directives).

Using ActionTracker

Creating Items

Quick Create (Wizard):

• Right-click in any tree view and select "New Action", "New Document", etc.
• Follow the step-by-step prompts

From Dashboard:

• Open the dashboard and use the "Add" buttons in each tab

From Command Palette:

• "ActionTracker: Create Responsibility Item" to add a new responsibility

Viewing & Editing

Click any item in the tree views or dashboard to open its Detail View:

• See all fields in a clean, formatted display
• Click Edit to modify fields inline
• Click linked items to navigate between related data
• Click Delete to remove (with confirmation)

Tree Views

• Actions by Forum: See actions grouped under their governance forums
• Digital Asset Register: Browse digital assets
• Benefits: Track benefits by stage
• Key Messages: Manage and insert reusable key messages
• Forums: See all forums and their upcoming meetings
• Suppliers: Track supplier/vendor entities
• Requirements: Track requirements and directives
• Recently Deleted: Recover or permanently delete items
• Tagged Items: Filter and jump to items by tag

Notes:

• Actions by Forum is a derived view (it groups existing Actions under Forums), not a separate data type.
• Recently Deleted is a utility view for the soft-delete bin across entity types.

Import & Export

• Export: Command Palette → "ActionTracker: Export Data" → Save JSON backup
• Import: Command Palette → "ActionTracker: Import Data" → Load from JSON file

Default Data

The dashboard Actions tab includes buttons to help you get started quickly:

• Add Default Data: merges the built-in starter dataset into your current data (non-destructive)
• Load Default Data: replaces your current dataset with the built-in starter dataset

Copilot Chat Integration

If you have GitHub Copilot Chat (VS Code 1.93+), mention @ActionTrackerCopilot to:

• Ask questions: "What actions are overdue?" or "Show me high-priority risks"
• Create items: create action {"summary":"Review policy","status":"open"}
• Create items: create responsibility {"title":"Own vendor access reviews","domain":"govern"}
• Update items: update action <id> {"status":"completed"}
• List items: list actions or list documents
• Create a directive requirement: create requirement {"framework":"PSPF 2025","code":"DIR-001","title":"Protective Security Direction","description":"...","domain":"Directives"}

Settings

Access via Settings → Extensions → ActionTracker.

Data Storage

All data is stored locally on your machine—no cloud, no accounts, no external dependencies.

Location: ~/.vscode/extensions/tobyharvey.actiontracker-*/globalStorage/actiontracker-data.json

Keyboard Shortcuts

Tip: You can customize these shortcuts in VS Code's Keyboard Shortcuts settings (Ctrl+K Ctrl+S / Cmd+K Cmd+S).

Support

• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Repository: GitHub

License

MIT

Development

Debugging

This repo includes VS Code launch configs for debugging the extension:

• Run Extension: launches an Extension Host with ActionTracker installed
• Extension Tests: launches Extension Host tests

These use the default build task (npm run watch) and attach breakpoints to the compiled output in dist/ via source maps.

Tests

• npm test runs the Vitest suite
• npm run test:deployment bundles the extension and runs deployment verification tests

The test suite includes a contract test that validates .vscode/launch.json and .vscode/tasks.json stay compatible with efficient debugging.