PlottersSkill for VS Code

Generate charts from natural language via @plotters in Copilot Chat.

`@plotters` Chat Participant

Type @plotters in Copilot Chat followed by a natural language description:

@plotters a histogram of 500 normally-distributed values with 30 bins
@plotters /pie revenue split: Web 40%, Mobile 30%, Desktop 20%, Other 10%
@plotters /line monthly sales for 2024 with three product lines

Slash commands: /histogram, /pie, /line, /scatter, /area, /boxplot, /candlestick, /axes, /subplots.

How it works

Your prompt is sent to the Copilot LLM with the plotters-skill API reference
The LLM generates a TypeScript script
The script is type-checked against the .d.ts — errors are fed back for auto-fix (up to 3 retries)
The passing script runs in a sandboxed VM — no filesystem or network access
The rendered chart image is sent back to the LLM for verification
The PNG is displayed inline in chat

Features

Feature	Description
Chart History	Gallery sidebar in Explorer — browse, re-render, or delete past charts
Edit Script	One-click button opens the generated TypeScript with a "▶ Render Chart" CodeLens
LLM Verification	Charts are verified against the original request; mismatches trigger automatic retry
Inline Errors	Type-check and runtime errors shown in chat during retries
Feedback Tracking	👍/👎 on chat responses tracked for stats (`PlottersSkill: Show Feedback Stats`)
Notebook Support	`*.plotters-notebook` files — TypeScript cells execute with inline PNG output
Render from Editor	`PlottersSkill: Render Chart from Active Editor` — run any `.ts` script directly
Configurable	Settings for retry count, VM timeout, preferred model, and source visibility

Chart Types

Chart	`figure()`	`axes()`
Histogram	✅	—
Pie / Donut	✅	—
Box Plot	✅	—
Area (fillBetween)	✅	✅
Candlestick (OHLC)	✅	—
Line	✅	✅
Scatter	—	✅
Bar	—	✅
Step	—	✅

AI Skill Installation

The bundled SKILL.md can be installed into any project so Copilot, Claude, or other AI tools automatically discover the plotters-skill API:

npx plotters-skill install-skill                    # all tools
npx plotters-skill install-skill --target copilot   # .github/skills/plotters-skill/
npx plotters-skill install-skill --target claude     # .claude/skills/plotters-skill/

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`plotters-skill.maxRetries`	3	Type-check / verification retry limit
`plotters-skill.vmTimeout`	10000	Script execution timeout (ms)
`plotters-skill.preferredModel`	gpt-4o	Copilot LLM model family
`plotters-skill.showSource`	false	Auto-expand generated TypeScript in chat

License

MIT

PlottersSkill

Albert Leigh