IPCraft for VS Code

Visual editor for FPGA IP Core and Memory Map specifications — design, generate, and build from inside VS Code.

Requires VS Code 1.80 or later.

Screenshots

IP Core Editor	Memory Map Editor	Data Inspector

Generated from the real editor UI by npm run docs:screenshots — see Automated Docs Screenshots.

Features

• Visual Editors — block-diagram IP Core canvas and tabular Memory Map editor, both with an inline inspector and bit-field visualizer; changes sync instantly to the underlying YAML (Create Your First IP Core, Memory-Mapped Registers)
• Data Inspector — decode literals and captured CSV data against registers, then transform and combine values in a visual workspace (guide)
• Custom Interfaces — define conduit (custom) bus interfaces with user-named signals, stored as reusable .busdef.yml files (guide)
• Consistency Check — cross-references a spec against the generated top-level HDL and vendor artifacts (component.xml, _hw.tcl), flagging drift in either direction (guide)
• HDL Generation — scaffolds a full RTL project (package, top entity, user-logic skeleton, bus wrapper, register file, testbench) in VHDL or SystemVerilog, plus Vivado and Quartus vendor project files (guide)
• Headless Build — runs Vivado or Quartus in batch mode from inside VS Code, with a Build Reports sidebar panel (timing, utilization, CDC) and status bar summary; Docker runner supported (guide)
• Import — reverse-engineer an existing VHDL entity, Platform Designer _hw.tcl, or Vivado component.xml into an .ip.yml spec (guide)

See Commands & Settings for the full command list and every setting's default and description, and Keyboard Shortcuts for canvas/table navigation.

IPCraft supports VS Code Restricted Mode with limited functionality. Visual editing and read-only inspection remain available, while generation, template rendering, imports that invoke Git, builds, vendor scans, and FPGA tool launches require a trusted workspace. See Workspace Trust and Restricted Mode for the complete behavior.

Quick Start

1. IPCraft: New IP Core (or New IP Core + Register Map) from the Command Palette
2. Design the core on the visual canvas
3. IPCraft: Scaffold Project to generate RTL, testbench, and vendor files
4. IPCraft: Build to run a headless Vivado/Quartus compile

Walkthroughs covering these steps (and importing existing VHDL, importing from vendor tools, and synthesizing) are available from Help → Get Started or IPCraft: Open Walkthrough....

Installing the Marketplace extension does not add a shell command to your PATH. A separate npm CLI package is being prepared for headless CI and scripting; until it is published, use the extension commands above. See the Generator Reference for local package testing.

Documentation

Full documentation — commands, settings, keyboard shortcuts, generator internals, schemas, tutorials — is in the docs/ directory, built with MkDocs:

pip install mkdocs mkdocs-material
mkdocs serve

Then open http://127.0.0.1:8000.

Development

ipcraft-spec (bus definitions and JSON schemas) is a git submodule — clone with --recurse-submodules, or run git submodule update --init --recursive after a plain clone.

npm install
npm run compile

Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host.

npm run watch        # watch mode
npm run test:unit    # unit tests
npm run lint         # ESLint (zero warnings)
npm run type-check   # TypeScript check

See Development Setup for the full contributor workflow.

License

MIT