NAssistant

NAssistant is a focused, AI-friendly file explorer for VS Code.

VS Code's built-in Explorer is powerful, but most of its convenience controls — folder icons, colors, per-file-type visibility, hide-from-view rules — live deep inside settings, scattered across multiple JSON keys and Settings UI pages. NAssistant gathers a curated subset of those controls into a calm, AI-friendly tree in the Activity Bar, and lets you hand a file or folder location to whichever AI tool you already use.

NAssistant doesn't replace VS Code's Explorer. It distills it for AI workflows.

Status

NAssistant is in active development.

The Explorer in the Activity Bar is the main surface. Copy and paste commands for AI workflows hang off it, and a small Options page exposes the most useful Explorer settings inline. Features ship gradually and the surface is intentionally kept small.

Installation

Install from the VS Code Marketplace:

• Open the Extensions view in VS Code (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X), search for NAssistant, and click Install.

• Or run from a terminal:

  code --install-extension fujigraphics.nassistant
  

After install, the NAssistant entry appears in the Activity Bar.

Why

VS Code's Explorer is great, but the small actions around it — and around handing context to an AI — still feel scattered.

Common friction points:

• Folder icons, folder colors, per-file-type visibility, and hide-from-view rules are spread across separate settings, JSON keys, and the Settings UI.
• You want to hide certain folders or file types only in your own view, without touching files.exclude for the whole workspace.
• You want to share a file or folder location with an AI tool, but you end up typing or massaging the path by hand.
• You want to share only the selected code, but end up copying too much.
• You manually add file paths, line numbers, and language names every time.

NAssistant focuses on these small but frequent moments.

Philosophy

NAssistant is intentionally small.

It is not an AI IDE, not a chat client, and not a model wrapper. The goal is to make everyday context-copying workflows fast, predictable, and hard to mess up.

Core principles:

• Explorer-first: the Activity Bar Explorer is the home surface; commands hang off it, not the other way around.
• AI-neutral: no dependency on a specific model, provider, API, or chat UI.
• Clipboard-first: work with the tools and AI surfaces users already have.
• Low interruption: prefer commands, shortcuts, context menus, and status feedback.
• Precise context: preserve file paths and line ranges without copying unnecessary code.
• Small surface area: ship a few sharp features instead of many shallow ones.
• Safety by default: make copied scope visible and reduce accidental over-copying.

Features

NAssistant Explorer

The Explorer is the main surface. Open it from the NAssistant entry in the Activity Bar.

It mirrors your workspace file tree, but with the small visibility and styling controls that VS Code normally tucks away in settings brought inline:

• Search and sort. A search field narrows visible items by name or path. The sort menu offers Default, Name A-Z, Name Z-A, and Type.
• Hide individual items. Right-click a file or folder and hide it from the NAssistant Explorer only. This updates NAssistant settings; it does not touch VS Code's files.exclude and does not delete, move, or rewrite anything on disk. To reverse, run NAssistant: Show Hidden NAssistant Items from the Command Palette.
• Hide by file extension. Hide entire extensions (for example .map, .lock) from the NAssistant Explorer without affecting the rest of VS Code.
• Folder and file extension icons + colors. Set a custom icon and color per folder or per file extension. A configurable color palette lets you keep visual cues consistent across a project.
• Show hidden as dimmed. By default, items hidden through NAssistant stay visible in this tree as dimmed rows, so you can still see and unhide them in place. The toggle is in the Options view.
• Multi-select context actions. Select multiple items and act on them together (copy references, paste contexts, hide).
• Reveal in OS. Right-click a file or folder and open it directly in Finder (macOS), File Explorer (Windows), or your Linux file manager — with the item selected.

The Options view next to the Explorer surfaces the most common settings (default assistant target, sort order, show-hidden toggle) inline. Less common rules (folder icons, file extension icons, color palette, hidden extensions) live in VS Code Settings under the nassistant namespace.

Copy File Reference

Normal copy is untouched in any file explorer. NAssistant does not put file bytes on the system clipboard or pretend to attach files to external AI tools.

When a file is selected in the NAssistant Explorer or the VS Code Explorer, Command+Shift+C on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+C on Windows/Linux copies a compact AI-ready file reference.

Output:

[file: src/example.ts]

The command is also available from the right-click menu in both explorers.

Copy Selection Location for AI

Normal copy is untouched. Command+C on macOS and Ctrl+C on Windows/Linux still copy the selected source code exactly as VS Code normally would.

When code is selected in the editor, Command+Shift+C on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+C on Windows/Linux copies only the selection location as AI-ready context.

Output:

[location: src/example.ts:12-38]

The selected source code is not copied by the AI location command. This avoids changing normal paste behavior in editors, documents, terminals, or other non-chat surfaces.

Paste Context to Assistant

When code is selected in the editor or a file is selected in either explorer, Command+Shift+V on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows/Linux builds the same context format and attempts to paste it into the selected assistant input.

The default target can be changed in the NAssistant Options view or in VS Code Settings. NAssistant: Paste Context to Claude and NAssistant: Paste Context to Codex can still be used directly from the Command Palette.

This command does not submit the message. It writes the generated context to the clipboard, opens the configured target, immediately asks VS Code to paste, and then clears the clipboard.

Caveat: This command briefly writes your code to the OS clipboard, pastes it into the target extension, and then clears the clipboard. During that short window, a clipboard manager (Paste, Maccy, Ditto, etc.) can capture the snippet and keep it in its own history. If you handle sensitive code, review your clipboard manager's behavior first.

Intended Workflow

NAssistant fits into normal VS Code usage.

Typical entry points:

• The NAssistant entry in the Activity Bar
• Right-click menus in the NAssistant Explorer and the VS Code Explorer
• Editor context menu actions
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Status bar feedback

A common flow:

1. Open NAssistant from the Activity Bar and browse the project in the curated Explorer.
2. Right-click a file or folder to copy a reference, paste context to an assistant, or reveal it in the OS.

Or directly in the editor:

1. Select code in VS Code.
2. Press Command+Shift+C on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+C on Windows/Linux.
3. Paste the prepared context into any AI tool.

Non-Goals

NAssistant should not become:

• A replacement for VS Code's built-in Explorer (NAssistant is a focused companion, not a substitute).
• A replacement for Cursor, Copilot Chat, Claude, Codex, or ChatGPT.
• A dedicated AI chat interface.
• A direct API wrapper for a specific model provider.
• A large prompt-engineering framework.
• A tool that copies entire projects by default.

License

Apache License 2.0. The full text is bundled with the extension as LICENSE.txt.