Kara for VS Code
Kara runs on your machine. Intelligence runs wherever your compute is.
This extension is the VS Code interface to Kara, a local-first coding agent.
It is a thin client: all agent, context, git, file-editing, permission and
inference logic lives in the kara binary, which the extension starts and
talks to over JSON-RPC on stdio.
No account. No subscription. No usage quotas. No telemetry.
Features
- Chat in the Kara activity bar, with streamed responses and live tool
activity, test results and file changes.
- Diff preview, accept and reject for every file Kara changes. Your own
edits are never overwritten.
- Permission prompts for edits, shell commands, network access and other
risky actions, depending on the permission mode.
- Editor context: Kara: Ask About Selection and Kara: Fix Selection
send the selected code and the file's diagnostics.
- Commands in chat:
/matrix, /morpheus <task> (plan, then approve),
/oracle (risk review of your diff), /model, /models, /status,
/undo, /diff, /connect and more.
- Inference wherever you have it: a local model if this machine can run
one, another machine you own (Kara: Connect to Inference Machine), or an
OpenAI-compatible endpoint. The extension never downloads a model without
your confirmation.
The Kara binary
On start the extension uses, in order: kara.binary.path, kara on your
PATH, or the copy in Kara's data directory. If none exists, it offers to
download the release for your platform from GitHub and verifies it against
the release's SHA256SUMS. The CLI and the extension share the same binary
location and the same downloaded models.
Settings
| Setting |
|
kara.permissions.mode |
ask, workspace or full for editor sessions; empty uses your Kara configuration. User setting only. |
kara.inference.provider |
local, kara, openai_compat, ollama, lmstudio or vllm; empty uses your Kara configuration. User setting only. |
kara.model |
Model for editor sessions; empty uses your Kara configuration. User setting only. |
kara.binary.path |
Path to kara. Machine setting. |
kara.autoStart |
Start Kara when a folder opens. |
kara.includeDiagnostics |
Send diagnostics with selection commands. |
Security-sensitive settings cannot be set from a workspace's
.vscode/settings.json, so a repository cannot enable full mode, redirect
inference or swap the binary.
Commands
Kara: Open · New Session · Ask About Selection · Fix Selection · Review
Current Diff · Run Tests · Choose Model · Connect to Inference Machine ·
Doctor · Show Changes · Undo Last Change Batch · Stop Current Task · Restart
Agent
Links
Source, documentation and issues: https://github.com/iamzayn19/kara
License: Apache-2.0
