FilePulse tracks how often you open files and visualizes your activity as a vibrant color heatmap directly in the Explorer. Stay in flow by quickly identifying your hot spots and grouping them into smart "Hot Groups".
Features
🔥 Visual Heatmap: Files are marked in the explorer with colored indicators ranging from cold blue to blazing red.
🎨 Git Friendly: The heat indicator is a colored dot next to the file name, so it doesn't interfere with VS Code's native Git colors or error highlights.
📉 Exponential Decay: Your frequency score naturally decays over time, ensuring current projects stay "hot" while old files cool down.
📌 Smart Hot Groups: FilePulse analyzes your workflow and suggests pinning clusters of files that you often open together.
📊 Dashboard View: A dedicated sidebar panel to see your top files, groups, and overall statistics.
🔒 Privacy First: All data is stored locally on your machine. No sync, no tracking, no external dependencies.
⚙️ Highly Configurable: Toggle decorations, adjust decay rates, and exclude files via glob patterns.
How the Heatmap Works
The heatmap uses a 5-tier system based on your percentile rank within the current workspace:
In plain English: a file you opened 100 times last month but haven't touched since will eventually score lower than a file you've opened 10 times today. This keeps your explorer focused on your current tasks.
Hot Groups
Hot Groups are collections of files that act as "pinned workspaces".
Auto-Suggestions: If you frequently switch between a set of files (e.g., a component, its styles, and its test), FilePulse will suggest creating a group.
One-Click Open: Open all files in a group at once. If there are more than 3 files, FilePulse can automatically split the editor layout for you.
Settings
Setting
Default
Description
fileHeatmap.showDecorations
true
Toggle the heatmap indicators in the explorer.
fileHeatmap.showBadges
true
Show colored dots and flames as badges.
fileHeatmap.minOpensForDecoration
3
Minimum opens needed before a file is colored.
fileHeatmap.autoSuggestGroups
true
Enable/disable smart group suggestions.
fileHeatmap.ignoredGlobs
[...]
Patterns to exclude from tracking (node_modules, etc).
fileHeatmap.decayLambda
0.02
How fast scores decay (0.02 ≈ half life of ~35 days).
Commands
FilePulse: Show Stats Panel - Focus the sidebar dashboard.
FilePulse: Reset All Tracking Data - Clear all history everywhere.
FilePulse: Reset Data for This Workspace - Clear history for the current folder.
FilePulse: Refresh Explorer Decorations - Manually force a UI update.
FilePulse: Create Hot Group - Manually create a group from your top files.
FilePulse: Delete Hot Group - Remove a pinned group.
FilePulse: Open Hot Group - Open all files in a group.
FilePulse: Export Data as JSON - Save your history to a file.
