Contextra reads your prompt's intent and auto-injects only the relevant slices of your codebase — cutting token costs and making AI outputs dramatically more precise.
Installation
Launch VS Code Quick Open (Ctrl+P), paste the following command, and press enter.
Contextra reads your prompt's intent and auto-injects only the relevant slices of your codebase — cutting token costs and making AI outputs dramatically more precise.
Why Contextra?
Stop pasting entire files or massive unoptimized code snippets into AI chats. Contextra analyzes what you're trying to achieve and automatically pairs your prompt with the most relevant context from your linked repository, lowering token usage and generating drastically more accurate AI responses.
Key Features
Automatic Context Injection: AI gets exactly what it needs, none of what it doesn't.
Secure Authentication: Seamlessly log in via the web dashboard. Your authentication stays securely managed by the OS keychain—never stored in plaintext workspace settings.
Preview Before Replacing: Ensure the assembled prompt and context are exactly what you want before it enters your AI workflow.
High-Performance Fallback: If you go offline, Contextra scales back gracefully to local file context processing to keep you moving.
Getting Started
Click the Contextra shield icon in the VS Code Activity Bar.
Click Connect Account. This will open your browser to the Contextra Dashboard.
Sign in and ensure your active repository is selected.
VS Code will automatically connect and load your session. You're ready to optimize!
Daily Use
Type out your prompt in the editor and highlight it.
Press Ctrl+Shift+O (or Cmd+Shift+O on macOS), or click the Optimize Prompt button in the sidebar.
A preview window will show the optimized codebase context layered perfectly with your prompt.
Accept the changes to either replace your selection or copy it straight to your clipboard, ready for your favorite LLM chat.
Commands
Command
Default Shortcut
Description
Contextra: Optimize Prompt
Ctrl+Shift+O
Build and inject context for your selected text.
Contextra: Connect Account
—
Securely log into your account.
Contextra: Sign Out
—
Remove local session securely.
Contextra: Show Status
—
Display current connection and active repository.
Contextra: Select Active Repository
—
Refresh or set the context scope to another linked project.
Extension Settings
You can customize your experience in VS Code Settings:
Key
Default
Purpose
contextra.previewBeforeReplace
true
When true, asks for your confirmation before replacing your selected text with the optimized prompt.
contextra.apiBaseUrl
https://www.contextra.xyz/api
The backend API used by Contextra.
contextra.webUrl
https://www.contextra.xyz
The web dashboard URL.
Build & Install
If you are building the extension from source, you can generate and install the .vsix file directly into VS Code by running:
npm install
npm run install-local
This automates the process of creating the production-ready extension package (.vsix) and submitting it to your local VS Code instance.
Support & Feedback
Encountering issues or have feature requests? Please file an issue on our GitHub repository.
