Vertex AI Models Chat Provider for VS Code

Native Gemini & Claude, powered by Vertex AI.

Experience enterprise-grade AI directly within the standard VS Code Chat panel.

This extension registers Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude as first-class providers—no separate UI, no extra windows, no friction.

• 🔒 Zero API Keys — Securely uses your native Google Cloud identity.
• 🏢 Automatic Billing — Costs follow your project settings as you switch workspaces.
• ⚡ Native Integration — First-class support for Gemini 3 and Claude within Copilot Chat.
• 📊 Cost Transparency — Real-time session tracking and interactive usage dashboard.

☁️ Google Cloud Prerequisites

⚠️ Important: Before using this extension, ensure your Google Cloud project is properly configured to avoid authentication or permission errors.

1. Enable APIs: Enable the Vertex AI API (aiplatform.googleapis.com) in the Cloud Console (Docs).
2. IAM Roles: Your account requires the Vertex AI User (roles/aiplatform.user) role (Docs).
3. Model Access: For Anthropic Claude models, find them in the Vertex AI Model Garden and click Enable (Docs).

🚀 Quick Start

1. Install: Find Vertex AI Models Chat Provider in the VS Code Marketplace and click Install.

2. Authenticate: Ensure you have the Google Cloud SDK installed and run:

   gcloud auth application-default login
   

3. Configure: Open VS Code Settings (Ctrl+,) and set your GCP Project ID in vertexAiChat.projectId.

4. Chat: Open the Chat panel (Ctrl+Shift+I) and select a Vertex model from the picker.

🌟 Why Project-Based Authentication?

This extension uses your GCP Project ID and Application Default Credentials (ADC) instead of traditional API keys. This approach offers several professional advantages:

• 🔒 Secure by Design: Credentials stay in your system's secure store via gcloud. There are no sensitive API keys to paste, store in plain text, or rotate manually.
• 🏢 Automatic Billing Switching: By setting the Project ID in your workspace's .vscode/settings.json, billing for LLM usage automatically switches as you move between different client or internal projects.
• 📈 Centralized Governance: Organization admins can manage model access and quotas centrally through the Google Cloud Console, which automatically applies to all developers using that Project ID.
• ⚡ Consistent Performance: Leveraging your own GCP project quotas ensures you aren't sharing rate limits with other users on a global API key.

✨ Key Features

• 🧠 Advanced Gemini Support: Full support for Gemini 3 Flash & Pro, including "High Thinking" modes with thought block rendering and signature preservation.

• ⚡ Anthropic Performance: Native support for Claude Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku, featuring automated Prompt Caching (Ephemeral) to reduce latency and costs for long conversations.

• 🔑 Actionable Auth: Improved detection of expired credentials with a one-click "Login with gcloud" fix directly from VS Code.

• 🪄 AI Commit Messages: Generate professional, conventional commit messages from staged Git changes with one click from the Source Control view.

• 📊 Local Usage Dashboard and Real Time Costs Estimation: An interactive, ECharts-powered dashboard to track your individual costs, token consumption, and payload metrics—all stored locally and updated in real time.

• 🔍 Smart Discovery: Automatically probes regional endpoints (global, us-east5, europe-west1, asia-southeast1) to find and register only the models available in your specific GCP project.

• 👁️ Multimodal Vision: Paste images directly into chat for analysis by vision-capable models like Claude 4.6 and Gemini 3.

• 🛠️ Tool Calling: Support for streaming parallel tool execution, enabling models to interact with VS Code agents and external tools.

🤖 Supported Models

⚙️ Configuration

📂 Diagnostics & Logs

For detailed request/response mapping and troubleshooting:

1. Open the Output panel (Ctrl+Shift+U).
2. Select Vertex AI Models Chat Provider from the dropdown.
3. View region probing results, token usage metadata, and raw API transformations.

🛠️ Installation from Source

If you prefer to build the extension manually:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/jorsm/vertex-anthropic.git
   

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install
   

3. Compile and launch:

   • Press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host.
   • Or run npm run compile to build the TypeScript source.

📜 License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.