Pulpo

Pulpo presents concise, agent-authored call-chain graphs for C++ APIs. It is designed for codebase ramp-up: start from a cohesive API surface, see the user-visible features that call it, and follow only the downstream behavior that matters to the investigation.

What it shows

• User-facing feature blocks and their direct API callers.
• Focal APIs aligned by conceptual layer and grouped by class or interface.
• Essential downstream functions, concrete implementations used through interfaces, callbacks, lambdas, and functor operator() methods.
• Overload-safe source navigation and exact outgoing-call highlighting.
• Parameter and return types on focused call edges.
• Foldable relevant detail without exhaustive call-graph noise.

Graphs are generated from deterministic Clang facts plus a coding agent's source investigation. The agent verifies overloads and source ranges, reasons across boundaries that a direct AST call graph cannot settle, and preserves uncertainty rather than guessing.

Getting started

1. Open a C++ Git repository in VS Code.
2. Run Pulpo: Open Pulpo or open the Pulpo panel.
3. If the project has no graphs yet, the panel displays the bundled agent-integration installation-prompt path.
4. Ask Claude Code or another compatible coding agent to read that prompt and install the shared Pulpo skill at a location you choose.
5. Ask the agent to investigate one or more C++ APIs. It will confirm the behavior aspects you care about before generating the graph.

The agent may need to locate or generate a trustworthy compile_commands.json for the relevant build configuration. Pulpo reads source and headers through AST-only analysis; it does not link or require compiled libraries.

Requirements and support

• VS Code 1.100 or newer.
• A C++ project inside a Git repository.
• Windows x64 or Linux x64 for the initial preview.
• A compatible coding agent for graph investigation and authoring; Claude Code is the initial supported workflow.

The extension bundle includes the platform-specific analysis command, native Clang analyzer, graph schema, and shared agent skill. End users do not install Node.js or LLVM for Pulpo.

Pulpo is MIT licensed. Complete notices for bundled JavaScript packages are included in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md; the integration bundle also carries the exact Node.js and LLVM/Clang license files. Pulpo distributes elkjs under EPL-2.0 and identifies the corresponding upstream source in those notices.

Use the extension's Marketplace Q&A page for support. When reporting a problem, include the Pulpo and VS Code versions, operating system, exact error, and the smallest non-sensitive reproduction you can provide. Never include credentials or proprietary source in a public report.

Local data

Generated graphs and view state are stored per repository in the operating system's local application-data directory, outside the source repository. Pulpo does not add graph artifacts to source control. Source files and compilation databases remain local unless the coding agent or other tools you use send them elsewhere under their own policies.

Pulpo has no backend, account system, telemetry, analytics, or code-upload mechanism. Its panel cannot make network connections, and its C++ analyzer runs locally. Use of an external coding agent and VS Code itself is governed separately by those products' privacy and data-handling terms.