Claude Extension
Chat with Claude inside Visual Studio. Claude Extension brings the Claude Code chat experience you may know from VS Code into a native Visual Studio tool window, powered by the Claude Code CLI installed on your machine.
Preview. This is an early release. Please report problems through the Q & A tab.
Claude Extension is an independent project. It is not developed by, endorsed by or affiliated with Anthropic. "Claude" is a trademark of Anthropic.
Features
- Chat with live streaming: Markdown answers with tables and copyable code blocks, a timeline of tool steps (commands, file reads, edits) and a prompt queue while Claude is working.
- Edits you control: permission cards (allow once, allow for this session, deny), side-by-side or inline diffs of proposed changes, plan mode with plan review, and permission modes (ask before edits, accept edits, plan, auto).
- Rewind: return to an earlier message and undo the file changes Claude made after it.
- Context from Visual Studio: the active file or selected lines are attached automatically; type
@ to mention solution files; paste or drop images.
- Visual Studio tools for Claude: Claude can read the Error List, open files, navigate code, build, run tests and inspect the debugger through an in-process MCP server.
- Sessions: session history per solution with search, rename, groups, archive and bookmarks; resume where you left off, even after restarting Visual Studio.
- Claude Code settings in the IDE: model and effort selection, MCP servers, hooks, memory, plugins, permission rules, output styles and context usage windows.
- Voice input: dictate prompts with the microphone button or Ctrl+D.
- Account and usage: session and weekly usage limits at a glance.
- Terminal integration:
claude running in a terminal can connect to Visual Studio with /ide.
- 14 interface languages, following the Visual Studio language by default.
Requirements
- Visual Studio 2026, or Visual Studio 2022 version 17.14 or later (x64 or Arm64).
- Claude Code installed and signed in (
claude on the PATH or in %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin). Usage is billed to your own Claude subscription or API account.
Getting started
- Install the extension and restart Visual Studio.
- Open View → Claude Extension.
- If you are not signed in yet, sign in from the chat window or run
claude once in a terminal.
- Type a message and press Enter. Type
/ for commands and settings.
Privacy and security
- The extension talks to Claude only through the local Claude Code process; it opens no network port of its own (terminal integration listens on 127.0.0.1 only).
- It does not store your credentials. Sign-in is handled by Claude Code.
- Every tool that needs permission is shown to you first; there is no "bypass permissions" mode.
License
Free to use for personal and commercial purposes. Copying, modifying, redistributing or reverse engineering the extension is not permitted. See the license shown during installation for the full terms.
| |
