vscode-fff-gpui

A fast, keyboard-driven fuzzy file finder and live grep for VS Code — powered by fff-gpui, the native GPUI file picker.

fff-gpui gives you frecency-ranked search, syntax-highlighted previews, and git-aware file indexing in a native overlay window. This extension bridges it into VS Code so you can summon it with the same keybindings you'd use in Zed.

✨ Features

• Fuzzy file search across your workspace with frecency ranking — files you open often rise to the top
• Live grep with plain text, regex, and fuzzy modes — results stream as you type
• Glob filtering — type **/*.rs, *.{ts,tsx}, or !node_modules in the search bar to narrow results
• Syntax-highlighted preview in a side pane powered by Tree-sitter
• Git-aware — see modified, staged, and untracked files at a glance
• Multi-select with Tab to open several files at once
• Native overlay — the picker runs as its own window, not inside the VS Code terminal

📋 Prerequisites

fff-gpui must be installed and running as a background daemon.

# Install via Homebrew (macOS)
brew tap th0jensen/fff-gpui
brew install fff-gpui
brew services start fff-gpui

Note: fff-gpui is currently macOS-only (Apple Silicon and Intel).

🚀 Getting Started

Once the daemon is running, open a project in VS Code and use:

• Cmd+K Cmd+P — Find files (type **/*.ts to filter by type, git:modified for changed files)
• Cmd+K Cmd+F — Grep file contents (type TODO to find TODOs)

Or open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P) and run:

• fff-gpui: Find Files
• fff-gpui: Grep Files

The picker window opens scoped to your workspace root. Without a workspace, it falls back to the active editor's directory, then your home directory. Type to search, navigate with arrow keys, and press Enter to open the selected file(s) in VS Code.

🤔 Why just two commands?

Most file-picker extensions add a separate command for every search variant: find files, find by type, grep, grep by type, git status, TODO search, resume… This extension takes the opposite approach.

The fff-gpui daemon is the UI. It already handles everything natively in its search bar:

So the extension only needs two commands: one to open the daemon in file mode (Cmd+K Cmd+P), one to open it in grep mode (Cmd+K Cmd+F). Everything else is you typing what you want — no external tools, no temp directories, no ripgrep.

This is KISS: the extension is a thin bridge between VS Code and the daemon. The daemon does the heavy lifting.

⌨️ Commands

⚙️ Configuration

The socket path defaults to ~/.local/state/fff-gpui/fff-gpui.sock. Only set this if you've configured fff-gpui with a custom socket location.

The path supports variable expansion:

• ${workspaceFolder} — replaced with the current workspace root path
• ~ — replaced with your home directory

Examples:

• ${workspaceFolder}/.fff-gpui.sock — per-project socket
• ~/custom/fff-gpui.sock — home-relative path

🔧 Troubleshooting

"fff-gpui daemon is not running"

Make sure the background service is active:

brew services list | grep fff-gpui

If it's stopped, start it:

brew services start fff-gpui

Check the extension logs

Open the Output panel (Cmd+Shift+U) and select fff-gpui from the dropdown to see the extension's log messages.

Check the daemon logs

fff-gpui writes logs to ~/.local/state/fff-gpui/fff-gpui.log:

tail -f ~/.local/state/fff-gpui/fff-gpui.log

No files found or picker is empty

The picker scopes search to the first workspace folder when one is open. If no workspace is active, it falls back to the active file's directory, then your home directory. Check the Output panel (Cmd+Shift+U → fff-gpui) to see which path is being searched.

🛠️ Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build
npm run build

# Lint
npm run lint

# Typecheck
npm run typecheck

# Run tests
npm test

❤️ Show your support

Give a ⭐️ if this project helped you!

👤 Author

👤 jellydn

• Website: https://productsway.com
• GitHub: @jellydn

If you find this extension useful, give it a ⭐️ on GitHub!

📝 License

MIT License © 2026 jellydn