Veto HUD for VS Code

A single, live heads-up display for the Veto MCP server — right in your sidebar and status bar.

Veto is a local MCP server that gives every AI (Claude, Gemini, Codex) a council of specialist agents, persistent memory, and a self-learning router. This extension surfaces what Veto knows — verdict, routing confidence, session, memory, rate — in one focused HUD. No terminal, no AI session required to read it.

The HUD

One sidebar view (and one status-bar pulse) replaces the old seven panels. Everything updates instantly via a file watcher, with a polling fallback.

⬡ VETO        ● GREEN
Session   claude · 16K/200K ▓░░░ 8%   [Resume] [Save]
Council   GREEN · just now
          ✓ Lead ✓ PM ⚠ Arch ✓ UX ⚠ Devil ✓ Legal ✓ Sec
          → ship it
Router    *.ts → reviewer   94% · 12×
Today     claude  ▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░ 50%
Memory    15 entries · this project   [ search… ]
Health    0.7 MB · 10 sessions · 24 patterns

• Session — the session matching your open workspace; created-by / active-in AI, token gauge, click Resume to continue it in Claude/Gemini/Codex/Antigravity (agy). Select AI for Extension Console, then Run in Extension Console for a single restore request with progress and cancellation. For ongoing chat, choose Open in VS Code Terminal and pick the AI there. Each provider requires its CLI on PATH, authentication, and a configured Veto MCP connection. Console restores do not bypass tool permissions; use Terminal if approval is required. AGY uses the agy executable.
• Council — last verdict (GREEN/YELLOW/RED) with each agent's vote and the recommendation. Buttons run a fresh Debate, Review file, or Review PR.
• Router — the strongest learned routing patterns and their confidence — why Veto routes the way it does.
• Today — per-platform token-budget usage.
• Memory — workspace-scoped count + inline search.
• Health — DB size and counts.

Status-bar pulse

Always-on, one glance: $(check) Veto · GREEN · 50% — verdict + today's peak token-budget use. Hover for session, router, rate, and DB detail. Click to focus the HUD. Shows ⟳ when serving last-good data because the DB is mid-write.

Inline diagnostics

When you run veto_code_review, veto_security_scan, or veto_secrets_scan with a file_path, findings are stored in the Veto DB and shown as squiggles in the editor — cleared automatically on the next passing scan.

Architecture (v1.0)

A clean, layered rewrite — no god-function, one DB connection, no shell strings.

src/
├── extension.ts     wiring only
├── core/            VetoStore (single long-lived read-only connection + change-detection
│                    + typed snapshot emitter), snapshot types, path/budget helpers
├── data/            pure SQL queries against the open handle
├── ui/              StatusBar pulse + HudView (nonce-CSP webview, DB strings never run as HTML)
└── commands/        actions via spawn(argv) — no shell, no string interpolation

• One read-only connection for the whole extension (no per-query open/close churn).
• Resilient: when the DB is locked mid-WAL-write it serves the last-good snapshot instead of blanking; missing tables are feature-detected for forward-compat.
• Safe by construction: the webview renders DB values with textContent only (no innerHTML); the one interactive claude call validates its inputs against an allowlist and all one-shot tools run via spawn(argv) with shell:false.
• Tested: npm test runs a smoke suite over the data path against a fixture DB.

Requirements

The extension reads ~/.veto/veto.db directly (read-only) — no server process needed to browse the HUD.

Settings

Install

Marketplace: search Veto MCP Dashboard in the Extensions panel.

From source:

git clone https://github.com/jigyasudham/veto-vscode
cd veto-vscode
npm install
npm run build        # bundle
npm test             # smoke tests
npm run package      # produce the .vsix
code --install-extension veto-vscode-1.1.0.vsix

Press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host with the extension live.

Want the same stats in your terminal?

The "stats below the CLI" statusline lives in the Veto CLI itself (so every Veto user gets it, not just VS Code users):

veto statusline install

renders a compact ⬡ veto GREEN · router 94% · claude 50% · mem 15 line beneath your Claude Code prompt. See the Veto server.

Changelog

v1.1.0 — Reliability, browsing, actions, and API v1

The HUD distinguishes saved context from live provider activity. Use Select Project to pin a workspace folder or follow the active editor. Session, memory, council, decision and review browsers offer scoped records and full detail views. Routing and learning aggregates are explicitly global.

Background actions require Workspace Trust and an authenticated Claude CLI with Veto MCP configured. They use bounded, cancellable subprocesses and verify actual tool results against the requested inputs. Save Summary Checkpoint saves only the supplied summary. Resume offers Claude, Gemini or Codex in an interactive terminal with the saved project directory. Commit-message and PR-description commands produce drafts in editor documents.

Search Transcripts, Load Backend Visibility, and Backend Setup Diagnostics use the published Veto API v1 JSON CLI. They require an installed backend that supports veto api; older installations show an unavailable error. Search is explicitly initiated and may index retained archives. Masked excerpts retain source and historical-data provenance. Lesson/trial snapshots are loaded only on request, labelled with their timestamp, and never harvest or deliver lessons. Configuration-only setup diagnostics do not perform login or server probes.

Passive saved-data browsing remains available in restricted workspaces. Remote workspace validation is on hold. See upgrade status for validation evidence and remaining release gates.

v1.0.0 — "Veto HUD"

• Rewrite: seven tree panels → one live HUD (sidebar webview) + a status-bar pulse.
• Architecture: layered core / data / ui / commands; a single long-lived read-only SQLite connection with change-detection and last-good fallback replaces 8 connections per poll.
• Security: removed all claude CLI shell-string building (CWE-78); one-shot tools now run via spawn(argv) with shell:false; webview uses nonce CSP + textContent.
• Focus: surfaces council verdict, agent votes, and router confidence prominently; dropped the off-by-default auto-triggers (the same actions remain on-demand).
• Tests: added a smoke suite over the data path.
• Moved out: the terminal statusline now ships with the Veto CLI (veto statusline install).

License

MIT © 2026 Jigyasu Dham

Backend API compatibility

Backend visibility, transcript search and setup diagnostics require Veto 3.8.0 or later with API v1 (npm i -g @jigyasudham/veto@latest). The extension checks api version first, requiring data.contract === 1 and backend version 3.8.0 or later. Commands run via node <cli_path> api <command> --stdin with an argument array and no shell. By default it uses Veto on PATH. To test an isolated backend, set the machine setting veto.cliPath to its absolute dist/cli.js path.