PlusPim — MIPS Assembly Debugger for VS Code

A VS Code extension that integrates the PlusPim time-travel debugger for MIPS assembly code.

Features

Step execution — Step through MIPS assembly one instruction at a time.
Step back — Rewind execution to the previous state (time-travel debugging).
Register view — Inspect all 32 MIPS registers, HI, LO, and PC during a debug session.
Label resolution — Jump targets and branch labels are resolved automatically.
DAP trace — Optional DAP communication logging to the PlusPim DAP Trace output channel.

Requirements

.NET 10 Runtime (bundled in the published extension)
VS Code ^1.108.0

Getting Started

Open a MIPS assembly file (.asm).
Open the Run and Debug view (Ctrl+Shift+D).
If no launch.json exists, VS Code will prompt you to create one — select PlusPim Debugger. The generated configuration looks like this:

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "type": "pluspim",
            "request": "launch",
            "name": "Minimal Launch",
            "program": "${file}"
        }
    ]
}

Press F5 to start debugging the currently open file.

Launch Configuration

Property	Type	Default	Description
`program`	`string[]`	`["${file}"]`	Path to the MIPS assembly file(s). A single string or an array of paths.
`port`	`number`	`4711`	TCP port used for the DAP connection.
`args`	`string[]`	`[]`	Extra arguments passed to the debug adapter (e.g. `["--verbose"]`).
`trace`	`boolean`	`false`	Show DAP protocol messages in the output channel.

How It Works

When a debug session starts, the extension:

Spawns the bundled PlusPim binary in a VS Code terminal, passing the target file and options.
Waits for the debug adapter to start listening on the configured TCP port (default 4711).
Connects VS Code to the adapter via DebugAdapterServer over TCP.

On session termination, the terminal is automatically disposed.

Known Limitations

Only Windows (x64) and Linux (x64) are supported. macOS is not available.

License

MIT

PlusPim

hinshiba