Double Diamond

A VS Code extension that brings the Double Diamond design process into your workspace — structured idea capture, progress tracking through four phases, and a sidebar overview of everything in flight.

What is Double Diamond?

The Double Diamond is a design process framework with four phases:

Research — discover the problem space
Design — define and frame the opportunity
Prototypes — develop possible solutions
Scripts / Models — deliver and validate

Each idea moves through subfolders representing these phases, with state tracked from not-started → in-progress → complete → reviewed.

Features

Idea management — add, remove, and initialise ideas into their folder structure
Sidebar tree view — browse all ideas and their phase subfolders at a glance
State machine — advance or revert subfolder states via inline buttons
Drag and drop — drop files onto a subfolder to copy them with automatic date/code prefixes
Todo list panel — Kanban-style webview showing all in-progress and blocked phases
Library export — send polished assets to an Obsidian vault or a shared library folder
Report generation — export a Markdown summary of all ideas and their progress
Status bar — live ◆ DD n/total count of ideas at a glance
Custom subfolders — override the default phase set via settings

Getting Started

1. Add an idea

Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and run:

Double Diamond: Add Idea

Type the idea name. A short CODE is derived automatically (e.g. Brand Refresh → BR). The idea is saved and appears in the sidebar — no folders are created yet. You can capture as many ideas as you like before committing any to disk.

2. Initialise an idea into its folder set

When you're ready to start working on an idea, click the new-folder icon (⊞) next to it in the sidebar. This creates the dated folder structure on disk:

260607_BR_brand-refresh/
  research/
  designs/
  prototypes/
  scripts/
  models-agents/
  tbd/
  260607_BR_spec.ears.md

Tip: If you've captured a batch of ideas and want to scaffold folders for all of them at once, run Double Diamond: Initialise Workspace from the Command Palette.

3. Progress through phases

Each subfolder shows its current state. Use the inline buttons to advance:

Button	Action
▶ (play)	Mark in-progress
✓ (check)	Mark complete
👁 (eye)	Mark reviewed
↩	Revert to previous state

Or press Enter with a subfolder selected in the tree to advance it.

5. View the Todo List

Click the ◆ DD status bar item at the bottom of the window to open the interactive Todo panel showing all phases that need attention.

6. Send to Library

Right-click an idea or run Double Diamond: Send to Library to copy assets to a shared folder or Obsidian vault.

7. Export a Report

Double Diamond: Export Report

Generates a dated Markdown report (260607_DDR_report.md) in your workspace root summarising all ideas and their phase states.

Configuration

All settings are under doubleDiamond.* in VS Code settings:

Setting	Default	Description
`workspaceRoot`	`""`	Root directory for idea folders (defaults to workspace root)
`autoDetectProgress`	`true`	Auto-set subfolders to in-progress when files appear
`libraryPath`	`""`	Destination for library copies; accepts a folder or Obsidian vault path
`obsidianIndexNote`	`""`	Absolute path to an Obsidian note that receives wikilink entries
`priorityIdea`	`""`	CODE of the idea to pin to the top of the Todo List
`customSubfolders`	`[research, designs, ...]`	Replace default phase subfolders with your own ordered list
`customTemplates`	`{}`	Map subfolder names to Markdown template file paths

File naming convention

Files and folders created by Double Diamond follow the pattern:

YYMMDD_CODE_kebab-name

For example: 260607_BR_brand-refresh/research/260607_BR_customer-interview-notes.md

CODE derivation rules:

Single word → first 4 characters uppercase (solution → SOLU)
Multiple words → initial of each word (brand refresh → BR)
Hyphens treated as word separators (user-research → UR)
Digits kept as initials (phase 2 test → P2T)
Maximum 6 characters

Requirements

VS Code 1.85.0 or later

Companion extension

Double Diamond creates spec.ears.md files inside each idea folder. These use the EARS (Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax) format — a lightweight, structured way to write requirements that humans and LLMs can both parse reliably.

The EARS Specs extension (also by davidcockson) adds syntax highlighting, snippets, and validation for .ears.md files, making it much easier to write and review specs directly in VS Code.

Find it on the VS Code Marketplace alongside this extension.

Release Notes

0.2.0

Fixed drag-and-drop date prefix test to be date-independent
Cleared all lint warnings
Removed Gitleaks CI step (paid licence requirement)
Improved .vscodeignore — VSIX reduced from 131 KB to 47 KB
Added marketplace README, CHANGELOG, and correct publisher metadata

0.1.0

Initial release — full Double Diamond workflow including idea capture, folder initialisation, state machine, drag-and-drop, Todo panel, library export, and report generation.

Feedback and Issues

Please report bugs or feature requests at the GitHub repository.