NATS Lens
A NATS client inside VS Code — connect with the contexts you already have from the nats CLI, publish/subscribe/request on subjects, and browse JetStream streams and consumers without leaving the editor.
📖 Documentazione · Guida all'utilizzo · Sviluppo
Features
- Your CLI contexts, zero config — reads
~/.config/nats/context/*.json (the nats CLI format: url, user/password, token, .creds); the CLI's selected context is highlighted. Credentials are used to connect and never displayed.
- Connections view — activity-bar panel with one click connect/disconnect; status bar shows the active connection.
- JetStream browser — streams with message/byte counts and subjects; expand a stream to see its consumers with pending/ack-pending counts.
- Subscribe — any subject (wildcards
* and > supported): messages stream into a dedicated Output channel, JSON payloads pretty-printed, headers shown, binary detected. Active subscriptions are listed in the tree and can be stopped individually.
- Publish / Request — quick input boxes with subject validation; request replies open as a document.
Commands
| Command |
What it does |
NATS Lens: Connect to Context |
Pick a context and connect |
NATS Lens: Publish Message |
Publish a payload to a subject |
NATS Lens: Subscribe to Subject |
Live-tail a subject into an Output channel |
NATS Lens: Stop a Subscription |
Stop one of the active subscriptions |
NATS Lens: Send Request |
Request-reply with timeout |
NATS Lens: Disconnect |
Close the connection (and all subscriptions) |
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
natsLens.contextsDir |
~/.config/nats/context |
Where the CLI context JSON files live |
natsLens.extraServers |
[] |
Extra nats:// URLs shown alongside the contexts |
Development
npm install
npm test # unit tests + integration against a throwaway local nats-server
npm run build # bundle to dist/
# F5 in VS Code launches the Extension Development Host
The core (context parsing, payload rendering, client wrapper) has no VS Code dependency and lives in src/core/ — the integration test spins up nats-server -js on a random port, exercises pub/sub, JetStream listing and request-reply, then tears it down. If nats-server is not installed the integration tests are skipped.
Branch protection & CI
We recommend protecting the main branch and requiring the CI workflow to pass before merging. Suggested protection rules:
- Require status checks to pass (select the
CI workflow).
- Require pull request reviews before merge (1 or 2 reviewers).
- Dismiss stale pull request approvals when new commits are pushed.
- Restrict who can push to
main (maintainers only).
These rules help enforce the TDD standard (npm test) and ensure releases are gated by passing CI.
License
MIT
