CodeLens AI for VS Code

Easily collect, organize, order, and format content from files, directories, and other VS Code resources within your editor! Perfect for creating context for LLMs, assembling documentation, sharing code snippets, viewing scoped Git diffs, or copying directory structures.

CodeLens AI interface showing sessions with multiple files and directories

Why CodeLens AI? 🤔

Tired of manually copying and pasting code, running separate git diff commands, or generating tree outputs? CodeLens AI streamlines these processes:

• 🧠 LLM Prompting: Quickly gather relevant code snippets and file contents (including from library sources) into a single, ordered, formatted block to provide maximum context for AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot Chat.
• 📚 Documentation: Assemble code examples from different parts of your project or dependencies effortlessly, maintaining a logical order.
• 💬 Code Sharing: Share context-rich snippets in issues, pull requests, or team chats without hassle.
• ✅ Code Review: Generate focused git diff outputs for specific files, directories, or logical groups (sessions) directly within VS Code.
• 📋 Structure Overview: Copy clean, text-based directory tree structures for documentation or sharing, with configurable exclusions.
• 📂 Organization: Use independent Sessions to group resources for different tasks, features, or bug reports. Your sessions and their contents persist across VS Code restarts!

Features 🚀

• 💾 Full Session Persistence: Your sessions, the resources within them (identified by URI), their hierarchy, and their custom order are saved and restored automatically when you restart VS Code.
• ✨ Multiple Sessions: Create, rename, and manage independent sessions to organize different sets of resources logically.
• ➕ Add Active Editor: Quickly add the currently focused editor tab to a session using an inline button.
• 🪟 Add All Open Editors: Add all unique open editor tabs to a specific session using an inline button (excludes duplicates and the session's own generated document).
• 🖱️ Drag & Drop: Add standard files or entire directories just by dragging them from the VS Code Explorer onto a session.
• ↕️ Reorder Items: Easily drag and drop resources within a session's level to change their order. This order is saved and used when generating output.
• 🌲 Hierarchical View: Added directories retain their structure within the session view.
• 👓 Improved Display: Resources in the tree view show their base name (e.g., MyClass.java) as the primary label and the contextual path (e.g., my-library.jar!/.../mypackage) as the description. Full path visible in tooltip.
• 🖱️ Click to Open: Single-click any file or resource item in the tree view to open it directly in the editor.
• ⚙️ Configurable Exclusions:
  • Define glob patterns (codelensai.exclude) to ignore unwanted files/folders during drag-and-drop from the Explorer.
  • Define glob patterns (codelensai.excludeFromTree) to ignore items when using the Copy Directory Structure feature.
• ⚡ Per-Item Actions: Quickly perform actions directly on items:
  • Inline Icons (Hover):
    • Session: ➕ (Add Active Editor), 🪟 (Add All Editors), 📄 (Generate), 📋 (Copy Content), 🗑️ (Clear).
    • Directory: 📄 (Generate Content), 📋 (Copy Content), list-tree (Copy Structure), ❌ (Remove).
    • File: ❌ (Remove).
  • Right-Click Context Menu:
    • Session: Git Diff options, Undo Last Removal, Expand All Subdirectories, Copy Directory Structure, Rename, Remove Session.
    • Directory/File: Git Diff options, Remove Item.
• 🔄 Undo Functionality: Easily restore recently removed files or directories using the "Undo Last Removal" option in the session's right-click menu.
• 📂 Directory Management: Expand all subdirectories within a session using the session's right-click menu options for better navigation.
• 📄 On-Demand Generation: Create clean, editable documents for session content or Git diffs when needed.
• 📋 Easy Copying: Copy formatted Markdown content, Git diffs, or directory structures to your clipboard with single clicks.
• ❌ Fine-Grained Removal: Remove individual resources or directories (and their children) from a session easily via an inline icon.
• 🌳 Copy Directory Structure (tree): Copy a text-based tree view of the hierarchical structure within a session or a specific directory item (respecting excludeFromTree settings).
• ↔️ Git Diff Integration: Generate diffs (git diff HEAD) for tracked files within sessions, directories (file:// scheme only, recursive), or individual files. View diffs in a document or copy directly to the clipboard. Requires the built-in vscode.git extension.
• 💨 Asynchronous & Responsive: Built with async operations to keep your editor snappy.
• 🔢 Optional Line Numbers: Toggle line numbering for generated content from the view title action ("Toggle Line Numbers") or via the codelensai.numberLines setting (default: false).

Installation 💻

1. Open VS Code.
2. Go to the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X or Cmd+Shift+X).
3. Search for CodeLens AI.
4. Click Install on the entry by Mahesh Doiphode.
5. (Recommended) Ensure the built-in Git extension (vscode.git) is enabled for Diff features.

(Alternatively, download the .vsix from Releases and install via Extensions View > ... > Install from VSIX...)

Getting Started & Usage 📖

1. Open the View:

   • Click the CodeLens AI icon in the Activity Bar.
   • You'll see the "CodeLens AI Sessions" view (or similar, based on internal naming). A "Default Session" is created if none exist.

2. Manage Sessions:

   • Create: Click the ➕ (New Session) icon in the view's title bar.
   • Rename: Right-click a session name -> "Rename Session".
   • Remove: Right-click a session name -> "Remove Session" (requires confirmation).

3. Add Resources:

   • Method 1: Drag & Drop (Files/Folders):
     • Drag files or directories from the VS Code Explorer.
     • Drop them onto the desired Session item or into the view's empty space (adds to the first session).
     • Exclusions defined in codelensai.exclude settings will apply here.
   • Method 2: Add Active Editor (Single Resource):
     • Open the file or resource you want to add in a VS Code editor tab.
     • In the CodeLens AI view, hover over the desired Session item.
     • Click the ➕ (Add Active Editor) icon that appears inline.
     • (codelensai.exclude settings do not apply here).
   • Method 3: Add All Open Editors (Multiple Resources):
     • Have multiple relevant files open in editor tabs.
     • In the CodeLens AI view, hover over the desired Session item.
     • Click the 🪟 (Add All Open Editors) icon that appears inline.
     • All unique open editors (excluding duplicates, items already in the session, and the session's generated document) will be added to the session root.
     • (codelensai.exclude settings do not apply here).

4. Interact with Items:

   • Expand/Collapse Session or Directory: Click ▶/▼ or the item label.
   • The primary label shows the resource name (e.g., MyClass.java).
   • The grey text description next to it shows context (e.g., my-library.jar!/.../mypackage or relative path).
   • Open Item: Single-click any file or resource item (non-directory) to open it in the editor.
   • Reorder: Drag an item within the same level (Session root or inside a Directory) and drop it above/below another item to change the order used for content generation.

5. Session Actions:

   • Inline Icons (Hover):
     • ➕ (Add Active Editor)
     • 🪟 (Add All Open Editors)
     • 📄 (Generate Code Block Document)
     • 📋 (Copy Code Block Content)
     • 🗑️ (Clear Session - Immediately removes all items)
   • Right-Click Context Menu:
     • Generate Git Diff Document vs HEAD
     • Copy Git Diff vs HEAD
     • Undo Last Removal (restores recently removed files)
     • Expand All Subdirectories
     • Copy Directory Structure
     • Rename Session
     • Remove Session

6. Resource Item Actions:

   • Directory Items (resourceDirectory) - Inline Icons (Hover):
     • 📄 (Generate Code Block for Directory Content)
     • 📋 (Copy Code Block for Directory Content)
     • list-tree (Copy Directory Structure)
     • ❌ (Remove Directory and its children from session - inline)
   • Directory Items - Right-Click Context Menu:
     • Generate Git Diff Document for Directory vs HEAD
     • Copy Git Diff for Directory vs HEAD
     • Remove Directory and its children from session
   • File Items (resourceFile) - Inline Icons (Hover):
     • ❌ (Remove File from session - inline)
   • File Items - Right-Click Context Menu:
     • Generate Git Diff Document for File vs HEAD
     • Copy Git Diff for File vs HEAD
     • Remove File from session

7. Advanced Directory Management:

   • Expand All Subdirectories: Right-click on a session and select this option to expand all directories to show their full content (up to 3 levels deep as per VS Code limitations).
   • Undo Last Removal: Accidentally removed files or directories? Right-click on the session and select "Undo Last Removal" to restore the most recently removed items.

8. Using Git Diff:

   • Requires the built-in vscode.git extension to be enabled.
   • Operates on resources with the file:// scheme that are tracked by Git.
   • Compares the state of tracked files against HEAD.
   • Session Scope: Diffs all tracked file:// resources within the session.
   • Directory Scope: Recursively diffs all tracked file:// resources under that directory within the session.
   • File Scope: Diffs the single tracked file.
   • Untracked files or non-file:// resources are skipped.
   • Generate Diff opens the output in a new .diff editor tab.
   • Copy Diff copies the output directly to the clipboard.

9. Copying Directory Structure (list-tree on Directory/Session):

   • Generates a text-based tree representation similar to the tree command.
   • Copies the structure to the clipboard.
   • Files/folders matching patterns in codelensai.excludeFromTree (based on their path relative to the copied root) will be omitted from the output.
   • Available via inline icon on Directory items and context menu on Session items.

10. Edit Generated Code/Diff (Optional):

    • Documents opened by "Generate Code Block" or "Generate Diff" are standard editor tabs. Edit them freely before copying/saving. Changes here don't affect the session or your Git history.

Configuring Exclusions 🚫

There are two types of exclusions:

1. Content Exclusions (Drag & Drop - codelensai.exclude)

Prevent unwanted files/folders from being added when dragging from the Explorer.

• Operates on full file system paths.
• Does not apply when using "Add Active Editor" or "Add All Open Editors".

Example settings.json:

{
  // ... other settings ...
  "codelensai.exclude": {
    "**/.git": true,          // Ignore .git folders anywhere
    "**/node_modules": true,  // Ignore node_modules anywhere
    "**/target": true,
    "**/build": true,
    "**/*.log": true,         // Ignore all .log files
    "**/.DS_Store": true,
    "**/dist": true,          // Ignore dist folders
    ".vscode/**": true       // Ignore files inside .vscode folder at root
  }
}

2. Structure Copy Exclusions (codelensai.excludeFromTree)

Prevent specific files/folders from appearing in the output of the "Copy Directory Structure" action.

• Operates on paths relative to the root of the structure being copied (either the session root or the selected directory).
• Use standard glob patterns.

Example settings.json:

{
  // ... other settings ...
  "codelensai.excludeFromTree": {
    // Common patterns (often match defaults in .gitignore)
    ".git": true,
    "node_modules": true,
    "target": true,
    "build": true,
    "dist": true,
    "*.log": true,         // Exclude log files at any level within the copied structure
    "__pycache__": true,
    ".DS_Store": true,
    "*.lock": true,        // Exclude lock files
    "temp/**": true       // Exclude everything inside a 'temp' folder within the structure
  }
}

Glob Pattern Tips:

• ** : Matches multiple directory levels (**/node_modules matches it anywhere).
• * : Matches zero or more characters except /.
• Use / as the path separator in patterns.
• Patterns in excludeFromTree match relative to the item you clicked "Copy Structure" on.

Line Numbering (Optional)

• Use the view title action "Toggle Line Numbers" to quickly enable/disable numbering for generated session content.
• Command: codelensai.toggleLineNumbers (also available from the Command Palette).
• Setting: codelensai.numberLines (boolean, default false).

Example settings.json:

{
  "codelensai.numberLines": true
}

Requirements

• Visual Studio Code version 1.97.0 or higher.
• Git Extension (vscode.git): The built-in Git extension must be enabled for Git Diff functionality.

Known Issues & Considerations

• External Resource Changes: If a resource added to a session is changed, moved, or deleted externally, the link in the CodeLens AI view becomes stale. Generating content, diffing, or opening it may fail. Remove stale items manually (❌).
• Git Diff Scope: Diff functionality only applies to file:// URIs that are part of a Git repository recognized by the vscode.git extension. Untracked files and non-file resources are ignored. Performance on very large repositories or diffs may vary.
• Structure Copy Relative Paths: The relative path calculation for excludeFromTree works best for standard file:// URIs within a workspace. Its behavior for non-file URIs or complex nested structures might be less precise.
• Binary Files: Content display/diffing for binary files may be incorrect or skipped.
• Performance: Adding huge directories or generating content/diffs for sessions with many very large files might take time.
• Reordering Scope: Drag-and-drop reordering only works between items at the same level (siblings within the session root or within the same parent directory).

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for full release notes.

Feedback & Contributions

Found a bug or have a feature request? Please open an issue on the GitHub repository! Contributions are welcome.

Development

• npm run webpack
• npx vsce package

Enjoy streamlining your code aggregation and review workflow! 🎉