OCI Layout Explorer

Visual Studio Code extension for exploring OCI image layout folders from the OCI Explorer view.

Features

• Explore images from one unified Explore Image action:
  • Open an existing OCI layout folder
  • Pick an image from the local Docker daemon
  • Enter a remote registry reference (tag or digest)
• Browse oci-layout, index.json, indexes, manifests, configs, layers, and attestations in a linked tree.
• Attestation nodes use concise display labels such as SLSA, SBOM (SPDX), SBOM (CycloneDX), Trivy Report, and VEX.
• Open blobs and descriptor files directly in the VS Code text editor.
• Open linked OCI files directly for raw inspection.
• OCI descriptor files opened as text are detected as JSON (when parseable), support Ctrl/Cmd-click digest navigation to linked blobs, and show digest hover previews.
• Use refresh actions on both OCI Layout and Docker Images views.
• Integrates with the Container Tools extension when available.

How It Works

When you choose a daemon or registry image, OCI Layout Explorer materializes an OCI layout directory and opens it in the tree.

Export strategy is selected automatically:

• Registry images:
  • Use direct registry copy with oras cp --recursive ... --to-oci-layout ...
  • Shorthand references are normalized automatically (for example, nginx:latest -> docker.io/library/nginx:latest)
• Docker daemon images:
  • Use docker save + oras cp --from-oci-layout <archive>:latest --to-oci-layout <layout>:latest
  • Attempt multi-platform export first, and retry with a concrete platform only if conversion requires it

Export metadata is written to .oci-explorer.json in each exported layout folder.

Requirements

• VS Code ^1.120.0
• For image export functionality, install ORAS.
• For local daemon exploration:
  • Docker daemon access (docker CLI)
• For remote registry exploration:
  • oras (used for direct registry-to-layout copy)

Getting Started

Install from the VS Code Marketplace, or search for OCI Layout Explorer in the Extensions view.

1. Open the OCI Explorer activity bar view.
2. Click Explore Image.
3. Choose one of:
   • Open OCI layout folder
   • Use image from Docker daemon
   • Pull image from registry
4. The selected/exported layout is opened automatically in OCI Layout Explorer.

Configuration

• ociExplorer.docker.socketPath
  • Docker daemon socket path.
  • If empty, uses DOCKER_HOST or the platform default.
• ociExplorer.docker.exportPath
  • Directory where OCI layouts are exported.
  • If empty, a temporary directory is used.
• ociExplorer.jsonDetectionMaxBytes
  • Maximum file size (bytes) for automatic JSON language detection on OCI descriptor files.
  • Default is 8388608 (8 MB).

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build (type-check + bundle)
npm run compile

# Watch mode (esbuild + tsc in parallel)
npm run watch

# Lint
npm run lint

# Run unit tests
npm test

# Run VS Code integration tests
npm run test:vscode

# Production bundle
npm run package