🌐 Localhost Ports Viewer
See every service running on your machine — without leaving VS Code.
Open, copy, or kill any localhost port directly from the sidebar.
💡 Why Localhost Ports Viewer?
When you're running multiple services at once — a React frontend, a Node API, a database, Docker containers — keeping track of which port is which is a pain. This extension puts all active localhost services in one place, right inside VS Code, with automatic framework detection and Docker container awareness.
No more lsof -i | grep LISTEN. No more forgotten ports.
✨ Features
📡 Real-time port monitoring
All TCP ports currently listening on your machine, updated automatically. No manual refresh needed.
🔍 Automatic framework & service detection
Identifies what's running on each port using multiple detection strategies: process name, command line analysis, package.json reading, and HTTP response fingerprinting.
| Category |
Detected |
| Frontend |
React, Next.js, Vue, Nuxt, Angular, Svelte, SvelteKit, Astro, Remix, Vite, Webpack |
| Backend (Node) |
Express, Fastify, NestJS, Koa, Hapi, Hono, Elysia, Nx |
| Backend (Other) |
Spring Boot, Java/Tomcat, Laravel, Rails (Puma/Unicorn), Django, FastAPI, Flask, Go, PHP/Symfony, Ruby, Gunicorn |
| Databases |
PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis, Cassandra, SQLite |
| Web Servers |
Nginx, Apache |
🐳 Docker container detection
Automatically detects ports exposed by Docker containers and shows the container image name with a whale icon instead of a generic process name.
- Runs
docker ps to map host ports to container names and images
- Recognizes known services inside containers (e.g.,
postgres:16-alpine shows as PostgreSQL)
- Dedicated Docker filter tab to quickly see only containerized services
🌍 HTTP framework fingerprinting
When process-level detection isn't enough, the extension probes HTTP ports to detect frameworks by analyzing response headers and HTML markers — identifying Next.js, Nuxt, Remix, Astro, SvelteKit, Angular, Vite, and React.
🖱️ One-click actions (hover a port to reveal)
- ↗ Open — opens
http://localhost:<port> in the browser (system default or VS Code Simple Browser)
- ⎘ Copy port — copies just the port number to clipboard
- 🔗 Copy URL — copies the full
http://localhost:<port> URL
- ✕ Kill — terminates the process with a confirmation dialog
🔎 Search & filter
- Type to filter by port number or service name
- Quick tabs: All · Node · DB · Web · Docker · Other
⭐ Favorites
Star any port to pin it to the top with a gold highlight — persisted across restarts.
🛡️ Smart system process filtering
Automatically hides IDE internals (VS Code helpers, Electron, JetBrains IDEs) and OS services so you only see what matters for development.
🎨 Native VS Code theming
Fully adapts to any theme: dark, light, high contrast. Uses VS Code CSS variables throughout.
🖥️ Supported Environments
The extension automatically detects your environment and displays a badge in the header.
| Environment |
Badge |
How it works |
| Local |
— |
Full support. Uses native OS commands (lsof, ss, PowerShell) |
| WSL |
🐧 WSL |
Runs inside WSL as Linux. Docker Desktop integration supported via docker.exe fallback |
| Dev Containers |
📦 Dev Container |
Runs inside the container. Detects sibling containers via docker ps |
| SSH Remote |
🔑 SSH Remote |
Runs on the remote host. Shows ports listening on the remote machine |
| Codespaces |
☁️ Codespace |
Runs in the cloud environment. Works like Linux |
Note: In remote environments, "Open in browser" uses VS Code's automatic port forwarding to reach the service on your local machine.
📸 Preview
Hover over any row to reveal the action buttons.
⚙️ Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
localhostPortsViewer.refreshInterval |
5000 |
Auto-refresh interval in ms (min 1000) |
localhostPortsViewer.commandTimeout |
5000 |
Timeout per OS command in ms |
localhostPortsViewer.openBrowserTarget |
"external" |
"external" = system browser · "internal" = VS Code Simple Browser |
localhostPortsViewer.debugLogs |
false |
Enable verbose logs in the Output panel |
🧠 How It Works
The extension uses OS-level commands to list listening TCP ports:
- macOS:
lsof -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN
- Linux:
ss -lntp (fallback: lsof)
- Windows: PowerShell
Get-NetTCPConnection
For each port, it applies a multi-layer identification strategy:
- Process name matching — checks the process name against known service patterns
- Command line analysis — reads the full command for deeper framework clues
package.json detection — for Node processes, reads project dependencies to identify React, Next.js, Vue, etc.- 🐳 Docker container resolution — queries
docker ps to map container ports to image names
- HTTP fingerprinting — probes HTTP ports to detect frameworks from response headers and HTML content
Results are cached per-PID (15s TTL) to keep refreshes fast.
🚀 Installation
Search Localhost Ports Viewer in the VS Code Extensions panel, or:
code --install-extension danilodevsilva.localhost-ports-viewer
After installing, click the wifi icon in the Activity Bar on the left.
💬 Feedback & Issues
Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue on GitHub.
If this extension saves you time, consider leaving a ⭐ review on the Marketplace — it really helps!
📄 License
MIT
