Azure Boards Inbox

Your Azure DevOps work items, in VS Code's sidebar.

A focused inbox for the work items on your plate — across every project — without leaving the editor. Read-only by default; commenting is opt-in.

Features

• All your items, one tree — assigned to you across every project, grouped, counted, and filterable
• Pull requests & comments that follow your selection — comments render formatting and inline images
• Add comments (opt-in) — a Markdown composer with live preview, and optional Polish with AI using your own model
• Copy as Prompt — formatted Markdown for Copilot / Claude Code / any AI chat (template is editable)
• Branch-aware status bar — check out bug/1234-fix-login and it shows AB#1234 · <title>
• One-click copy of branch name / AB#1234 / URL, or open in Azure DevOps

Quick start

1. Click the Azure Boards icon in the activity bar → Sign in.
2. Paste your org URL and a Personal Access Token. Default scopes: Work Items: Read and Project and Team: Read. The token is stored encrypted in VS Code's SecretStorage.
3. ⋯ → Manage Subscriptions to pick the projects you care about.

That's it — your items show up in the tree.

Work items

Everything assigned to you, grouped by project with live counts. Pin the items you're actively working on to a section at the top, and filter from the title bar (show closed, all assignees, current iteration only).

Each row has inline actions and a right-click menu: Pin, Copy as Prompt, Open in Azure DevOps, Copy Branch Name, Copy ID (AB#1234), Copy URL.

Pull requests

Every PR linked to the selected work item, with a status pill (Draft / Active / Merged / Abandoned) and repo · source → target. Click to open in the browser.

Comments

The discussion thread for the selected item, refreshed as you change selection. Each comment is a card with its formatting intact (bold, lists, code) and images rendered inline — Azure DevOps attachment images are auth-gated, so the extension loads them through your token instead of showing broken links.

Adding comments

Replying is off by default so the extension only ever needs a read-only token. When you want it, turn it on — once — and a composer appears under the thread.

Enable it. Run Azure Boards: Enable Adding Comments (or click Enable adding comments in the Comments view, or flip azureBoards.enableComments). You'll be prompted for a Personal Access Token with Work Items: Read & Write — this replaces your token in place (write is a superset of read, so everything keeps working).

Write it. Draft in Markdown with the toolbar — bold, italic, code, bulleted/numbered lists, links — and watch the live preview render exactly what will be posted. Undo/redo works as expected. Post with Ctrl/Cmd+Enter or the Comment button.

Polish it (optional). A Polish button cleans up grammar, clarity, and formatting:

• It uses your own model — the editor's Language Model API (e.g. GitHub Copilot) when present, otherwise an OpenAI-compatible endpoint you configure. Only your draft is sent, and nothing goes to the extension author.
• Using Cursor (or any editor without a built-in model)? Run Azure Boards: Set AI API Key, then set azureBoards.ai.baseUrl and azureBoards.ai.model. Any /chat/completions endpoint works — OpenAI, OpenRouter, Groq, or a local Ollama/LM Studio server.
• It rewrites in place for you to review before posting; it never posts on its own and never invents content.
• If no model and no key are available, the button is simply hidden — manual commenting still works everywhere.

Copy as Prompt

Turn any work item into a clean Markdown prompt for an AI assistant — type, title, description, repro steps, acceptance criteria, recent comments, and a reference link. Edit the layout with Edit Prompt Template (⋯ overflow); it opens in an editor and applies on save.

Tokens: {preamble} {id} {title} {type} {state} {priority} {assignedTo} {iteration} {tags} {parent} {link} {description} {reproSteps} {acceptanceCriteria} {comments}. A line whose tokens all resolve to empty is dropped.

Open by ID or URL — Command Palette → Azure Boards: Open Work Item in Browser… → paste anything containing a work-item id.

Settings

All commands live under the Azure Boards category in the Command Palette.

Troubleshooting

• No items showing. Subscribe to a project (⋯ → Manage Subscriptions) and check the title-bar filters.
• "Azure DevOps rejected your access token (401/403)". Your PAT expired or is missing scopes — click Update Access Token in the Work Items panel (or run the Update Access Token command) and paste a fresh one.
• Can't add a comment / "lacks write access". Run Enable Adding Comments and paste a token with Work Items: Read & Write.
• No "Polish" button. It appears when a model is available: a vscode.lm provider (e.g. GitHub Copilot signed in), or an OpenAI-compatible key. In Cursor there's no built-in model, so run Azure Boards: Set AI API Key and set azureBoards.ai.baseUrl / azureBoards.ai.model.
• "Current iteration" filter is empty. It uses each project's default team; sprints under other teams won't show.

Develop & release

npm install
npm run build           # or: npm run watch
npm run screenshots     # regenerate README images (needs @vscode/codicons)

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

Tagged releases (v*.*.*) publish via .github/workflows/publish.yml to both:

• VS Code Marketplace — requires a VSCE_PAT repo secret (Azure DevOps PAT, Marketplace → Manage).
• Open VSX Registry — what Cursor, VSCodium, Windsurf and other VS Code forks install from. Requires an OVSX_PAT repo secret (open-vsx.org → user menu → Access Tokens). One-time setup: sign the Eclipse Foundation Publisher Agreement and own the danilocolombi namespace (CI runs ovsx create-namespace). If OVSX_PAT is unset the Open VSX step is skipped.

npm version patch        # bump + tag
git push --follow-tags   # CI publishes to both registries

More from this author

• Azure Pipelines Inbox — the companion for the other half of Azure DevOps: watch your pipeline runs live from the sidebar, with stage/job/task timeline, live log streaming, and AI-friendly log copying.
• Azure Pull Requests Inbox — your team's pull requests in the sidebar, with the ones that need your review pinned on top: native side-by-side diffs, conversation threads with reply, voting and merging from the editor, and one-click AI review.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.