Boards Discuss

Stay in flow while keeping up with Azure Boards. Boards Discuss adds a focused Activity Bar panel for finding work items, reading their context, and participating in their discussion threads—without bouncing between your editor and a browser.

What you can do

• Search by title, tag, or work-item ID (#1234).
• Filter by assignment, state, and work-item type.
• Sort by recent activity, ID, or title.
• Pin active work and favorite items you want to revisit.
• Read the description and acceptance criteria beside the discussion.
• Read rich discussion posts and safely open their links.
• Write formatted replies with bold, italic, code, and links.
• Type @ plus two characters to find and mention a coworker.
• Delete comments that you authored, with a confirmation step.
• Receive configurable VS Code notifications for new @mentions.
• Open the selected item in Azure DevOps when you need the full work-item form.

Pinned items are shown first. Favorites stay close by even when they no longer match the current search.

Get started

1. Install Boards Discuss and select its speech-bubble icon in the Activity Bar.
2. Choose Configure organization.
3. Enter your Azure DevOps organization and, optionally, a project.
4. Create a personal access token in Azure DevOps with Work Items — Read & write scope.
5. Choose Connect to Azure DevOps and complete the authentication prompt.

The PAT is stored with VS Code's encrypted SecretStorage API. It is never saved in settings.json, extension logs, or workspace files.

You can also run any command from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P):

• Boards Discuss: Open
• Boards Discuss: Configure Azure DevOps Connection
• Boards Discuss: Connect to Azure DevOps
• Boards Discuss: Disconnect from Azure DevOps
• Boards Discuss: Refresh
• Boards Discuss: Show Help

Using the panel

Find the right work

Search is debounced as you type. Enter plain text to match work-item titles and tags, or enter a numeric ID—with or without #—to go directly to an item. Comma-separated State and Type fields let you combine filters such as Active, New and Bug, User Story.

Clear Assigned to me when you need to explore team work. The result limit is controlled by boardsDiscuss.pageSize.

Read and reply

Select an item, then switch among Discussion, Description, and Acceptance criteria. Rich content is sanitized before it reaches the panel. Web and email links open through VS Code's trusted external-link flow.

The composer supports a small, predictable Markdown subset:

Press Ctrl+Enter or Cmd+Enter to post. Type @ followed by at least two characters to search Azure DevOps identities; choosing a result inserts a real Azure DevOps mention that can notify that person.

Mentions

Boards Discuss periodically checks recently updated items for comments that mention your Azure DevOps identity. Select Open discussion on a notification to jump directly to the item. Checks run only while VS Code and the extension are active.

Set boardsDiscuss.notificationIntervalMinutes to 0 to turn mention notifications off.

Settings

Connection settings are global because they describe your account rather than a particular source folder. Favorite, pin, filter, and last-selection state is also retained globally.

Token permissions and privacy

Use the narrowest PAT possible:

• Scope: Work Items — Read & write
• Organization: only the organization you configured
• Expiration: a short period that fits your team's rotation policy

Boards Discuss communicates directly with Azure DevOps over HTTPS. It has no analytics service and does not transmit work-item data anywhere else. Forgetting the PAT removes it from VS Code SecretStorage immediately.

Troubleshooting

401 or 403 from Azure DevOps
Replace the saved PAT and confirm it is active, belongs to the configured organization, and has Work Items read/write permission.

No work items appear
Clear Assigned to me, remove State/Type filters, confirm the exact project name, and refresh. An empty project setting searches across projects visible to your account.

Coworkers do not appear after @
Enter at least two characters and confirm the PAT can read identities in the organization. Some organizations restrict identity search through their access policy.

Mention notifications are late
Checks occur at the configured interval and only while VS Code is running. Set a shorter interval if your organization permits the added API traffic.

For sensitive reports, see SECURITY.md. For product questions and reproducible bugs, open an issue in the repository listed by the extension manifest.

Development

npm install
npm run check
npm run package

Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host. The complete check runs TypeScript validation, ESLint, a production build, and the Node test suite.

License

MIT © barberod