Cutieboard 💓

A tiny btop-inspired system monitor that lives in VS Code's Explorer sidebar.

CPU, memory, NVIDIA GPU, temperature, and power telemetry — right beside your file tree, no editor tab required. Zero dependencies, everything sampled locally on your machine.

host · up 3h12m · 14:02:11 · ● live
CPU  23.4% [██████░░░░] ▂▅▃▇   16T · L 1.20/0.90/0.70 · temp 61°C
MEM  58.1% [████████░░] ▃▅▅▆   used 9.3G · free 6.7G · total 16.0G
GPU  75.0% [█████████░] ▅▇▆█   VRM 50.0% 4.0G/8.0G · temp 68°C · power 82.5W
PWR  70.0W   CPU 25W  GPU 30W · system total

Features

• CPU — utilization with rolling history, thread count, load averages, processor model, and package temperature when a sensor is readable
• Memory — utilization with rolling history plus used / free / total (labeled unified on Apple Silicon, where one pool serves CPU and GPU)
• GPU — NVIDIA utilization, VRAM usage, temperature, and power via nvidia-smi; the whole section hides itself when no NVIDIA tooling is present, so it never shows junk
• Power — live device or component wattage with CPU/GPU breakdown and source label (system total or battery draw)
• System strip — hostname, uptime, live/paused/error state, and last-sample time
• Native controls — refresh, pause, and resume buttons right in the view title, plus a Cutieboard: Focus Monitor command to jump to the panel
• Always sampling — keeps collecting every couple of seconds even when the view is collapsed, with overlap protection so slow sensors can't pile up

Install

From the VSIX (recommended)

1. Grab cutieboard-0.1.0.vsix from the repo (or build it yourself — see below).
2. In VS Code: Extensions → … → Install from VSIX… and pick the file.
3. Open the Explorer sidebar and expand Cutieboard.

Run from source

1. Open this folder in VS Code.
2. Press F5 and choose Run Cutieboard.
3. In the Extension Development Host window, open Explorer and expand Cutieboard near the bottom of the sidebar.

Usage

Paused state is reflected in the status dot (live → paused) and in the view-title buttons. If a sample ever fails, the panel shows an error state with the message instead of going blank.

Platform support

CPU and memory work everywhere via Node's system APIs. Temperature, power, and GPU telemetry are best-effort — when the OS doesn't expose a sensor, that field quietly shows as unavailable instead of failing.

macOS notes

• On MacBooks, battery discharge power works with zero setup.
• CPU temperature and powermetrics CPU/GPU power need privileges: install osx-cpu-temp for temperature, or grant powermetrics access for full readings.
• On Apple Silicon there is no separate VRAM pool, so Cutieboard labels memory unified and hides the VRAM row rather than counting the same gigabytes twice.

Windows notes

• Battery discharge power works with zero setup on laptops (WMI BatteryStatus); on desktops without a battery, power shows as unavailable.
• CPU temperature comes from the WMI thermal zone, which many firmwares don't expose — expect --°C on those machines rather than an error.

How it works

Four small modules, no dependencies beyond Node builtins and the VS Code API:

Nothing ever leaves your machine: no network calls, no telemetry, no accounts.

Development

npm run check    # syntax-check all modules
npm test         # full unit suite (node --test)
npm run package  # build cutieboard-0.1.0.vsix with vsce

License

MIT — see the LICENSE file.