ArchGen
Read-only visualization of your .archgen/ folder: live task DAG, code dependency graph, and rendered docs.
ArchGen renders the plans produced by the archgen
skill — an architecture contract plus a dependency-ordered task graph — as live,
interactive views in your editor. Watch tasks move through the pipeline, inspect
your code's real dependencies, read the docs, and hand work to any coding agent
with one click.
Privacy & guarantees
ArchGen is strictly a window over your repository:
- Never edits anything. It reads
.archgen/ files and your codegraph index; all writes are done by your agent. Uninstalling loses nothing.
- No telemetry. No data leaves your machine.
- No LLM calls. The extension contains no agent runtime — it composes prompts and hands them to the agent you already use.
- Codegraph indexes are opened read-only.
Features
| View |
What you get |
| TASKS |
The task board drawn as a dependency DAG: running tasks pulse, done is green, failed is red; minimap, legend, and zoom controls. |
| CODE |
Your code's real dependencies, read from the codegraph SQLite index — search, edge-kind filters, impact highlighting. |
| DOCS |
Rendered architecture docs with mermaid diagrams and click-through to source. |
| ▶ Build / Start Work |
Copies the composed prompt to your clipboard for any agent chat, with best-effort pre-fill of the native chat input. Optional headless CLI dispatch via archgen.delivery.mode. |
Also included: a feature picker for repos with multiple .archgen/<slug>/
features, live updates as files change, and keyboard navigation (Tab to a task,
Enter/Space to build it).
Installation
- VS Code Marketplace — search for "ArchGen" (publisher
archgen) in the Extensions view and install.
- From a
.vsix — download the latest release from GitHub Releases, then run Extensions: Install from VSIX…
Usage
- Open the ArchGen activity-bar icon (or run ArchGen: Open Task Board). The activity bar shows glanceable progress, status-grouped tasks, and quick-open docs.
- Switch between the TASKS, CODE, and DOCS tabs on the board.
- Click ▶ on any task to copy its build prompt, or ▶ Start Work for the full execution prompt — then paste it into your agent chat.
Requirements
- VS Code ≥ 1.90 (or a fork — see below).
- A
.archgen/ folder produced by the archgen skill (npx archgen-skill init, then generate an architecture).
- For the CODE view: a codegraph SQLite index in the workspace —
.codegraph/codegraph.db (colby) or .codegraph/graph.db (optave). Other codegraph products are not read; the CODE tab shows an explicit unsupported banner instead.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
archgen.harness.default |
claude |
Agent harness invoked by the ▶ build button: claude | opencode | codex | gemini | custom. |
archgen.harness.templates |
built-in templates |
Command template per harness. Placeholders: {{prompt}}, {{task}}, {{outfile}}. |
archgen.scriptsPath |
(empty) |
Explicit path to the archgen scripts directory (next-tasks.mjs, set-status.mjs). When empty, probed in order: <workspace>/.agents/skills/archgen/scripts, <workspace>/.claude/skills/archgen/scripts, <workspace>/skills/archgen/scripts, ~/.agents/skills/archgen/scripts, ~/.claude/skills/archgen/scripts. |
archgen.delivery.mode |
clipboard |
How ▶ delivers work: clipboard copies the composed prompt to paste into any agent chat (works everywhere); spawn runs the headless CLI harness and requires a trusted workspace — it is refused with a warning otherwise. |
archgen.delivery.autoFillChat |
true |
After copying, best-effort pre-fill of the IDE's native chat input (ignored where unsupported). |
spawn mode dispatches the harness templates, e.g.:
"archgen.harness.templates": {
"claude": "claude -p \"{{prompt}}\" --output-format json --permission-mode acceptEdits",
"opencode": "opencode run \"{{prompt}}\" --auto --format json",
"codex": "codex exec --sandbox workspace-write --json -o \"{{outfile}}\" \"{{prompt}}\"",
"gemini": "gemini --output-format json \"{{prompt}}\""
}
Supported editors
VS Code ≥ 1.90, Cursor, Windsurf, and VSCodium — the extension targets only
stable webview APIs, so it behaves the same in each.
License
MIT © ArchGen contributors
