A always-editable markdown notepad sidebar for VS Code and Cursor. Notes live in a plain text file in your workspace, persist across restarts, and update live when Claude (or any other tool) writes to the file.
Installation
VS Code Marketplace:
code --install-extension deviationlabs.vscode-sidebar-notes
Cursor Marketplace (Open VSX):
Search Sticky Sidebar Notes by deviationlabs in the Cursor Extensions panel, or install the .vsix directly:
cursor --install-extension vscode-sidebar-notes-0.1.0.vsix
Features
- Always editable: the sidebar is a plain textarea — no toggle needed, just start typing.
- Immediate sync: every keystroke saves to disk instantly. No debounce delay by default.
- Live reload: external edits (from Claude,
git pull, another editor) refresh the sidebar immediately without losing your cursor position.
- White background: clean notepad aesthetic regardless of your editor theme.
- Workspace-aware: each workspace gets its own
sidebar-notes.md. Falls back to a configurable global file when no workspace is open.
- Published to both marketplaces: available on VS Code Marketplace and Cursor (Open VSX).
Usage
- Click the Sticky Sidebar Notes icon in the activity bar.
- The sidebar shows
sidebar-notes.md from your workspace root — created automatically on first save.
- Type directly in the sidebar; changes write to disk immediately.
- Click the filename in the status line to open the file in a regular editor tab.
- Have Claude write to the file and watch the sidebar update live:
Append a one-paragraph summary of this session to sidebar-notes.md.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
sidebarNotes.fileName |
sidebar-notes.md |
Workspace-relative path of the notes file. |
sidebarNotes.globalFile |
(empty) |
Absolute path used when no workspace is open. |
sidebarNotes.debounceMs |
0 |
Milliseconds between keystroke and save. 0 = immediate. |
Development
cd VSCodeSidebarNotes
npm install
npm run compile # one-shot bundle → dist/extension.js
npm run watch # rebuild on save
Press F5 from this folder to launch an Extension Development Host.
Packaging
npm run package # production bundle
npm run package-vsix # produces vscode-sidebar-notes-<version>.vsix
Publishing
PATs are stored in config/local.yaml (gitignored) under vscode_marketplace.pat and open_vsx.pat.
VS Code Marketplace:
VSCE_PAT=$(python3 -c "from omegaconf import OmegaConf; c=OmegaConf.load('../config/local.yaml'); print(c.vscode_marketplace.pat)") npm run publish
Cursor / Open VSX:
OVSX_PAT=$(python3 -c "from omegaconf import OmegaConf; c=OmegaConf.load('../config/local.yaml'); print(c.open_vsx.pat)") npm run publish-cursor
To get new tokens: VS Code PAT from dev.azure.com (scope: Marketplace → Manage); Open VSX PAT from open-vsx.org (scope: publish).
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
