Kendr Code for VS Code

Local Git and verification

Code-changing Agent runs require local Git. Kendr initializes a non-Git project before starting Agent execution, without staging files, creating commits, adding remotes, or pushing. Existing repositories and uncommitted work are preserved. Ask and Plan remain available without Git. Git setup errors must be resolved before Agent work starts; Kendr's checkpoints remain the rollback mechanism.

Finished runs distinguish recorded checks passing from incomplete verification. Neither a finished loop nor a successful syntax check guarantees a working app. Project-specific instructions belong in root/scoped KENDR.md or AGENTS.md; .kendr/KENDR.md is generated factual memory, not an instruction file.

Kendr Code brings a standalone agentic coding workspace into VS Code. Use local, self-hosted, or hosted models; keep multiple coding sessions; review changes; approve tools; work in isolated Git worktrees; and return to durable conversations without leaving the editor. Kendr Desktop is optional.

Highlights

• Chat on the right. Open Kendr Code from its logo in VS Code's secondary sidebar and keep the conversation beside your editor.
• Editor toolbar launcher. Open Kendr from its official logo at the top right of any file editor.
• Sessions on the left. Use the Kendr Activity Bar logo to create, find, switch, rename, refresh, or expand durable coding sessions.
• Multiple conversations. The right sidebar has a dedicated searchable Chats screen. Select a row to enter its thread and use Back to return to the list without replacing editor documents.
• Cross-project session library. Search conversations across every Kendr project, keep important work pinned, archive completed work, or fork a settled conversation into another project.
• Optional editor tabs. Open any conversation in a retained editor tab when you need more room or a side-by-side layout.
• Standalone background runtime. Kendr starts its own bundled authenticated runtime. It does not discover or launch Desktop, even when Desktop is installed. There is no runtime chooser in the normal workflow, and a workspace that has never used Kendr does not start a runtime until you open a Kendr view.
• Local and hosted model routes. Add Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM, llama.cpp, OpenAI-compatible endpoints, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google AI, xAI/Grok, or Kendr Hosted from VS Code, with Agent/Ask/Plan compatibility enforced in the composer.
• Reviewable coding work. Follow streaming responses, tool activity, plans, todos, approvals, changed files, checkpoints, memories, previews, and delegated-agent progress in one conversation.
• Native review. Open each changed file in VS Code's side-by-side diff editor, edit an agent's plan as Markdown, and explicitly start implementation from the reviewed plan.
• Controlled context. Type @ to add workspace files, paste a screenshot or attach an image, see usage against the selected model's context window, and compact a long conversation without starting over.
• Browser takeover. Open the task's browser with Kendr Code: Open Browser, choose Take over, and complete sign-in directly in the page. Resume Kendr returns control without changing the browser session. Closing the panel leaves the browser paused.
• Work from the editor. Keyboard shortcuts, editor and Explorer context menus, a lightbulb fix action, terminal output capture, and the bundled Kendr CLI in an integrated terminal keep the code in front of you.
• Resilient long-running work. Transient provider outages, malformed model actions, and recoverable checklist/verifier gaps stay live with visible, cancellation-aware retry status; interrupted event streams resume from the last durable event without replaying completed activity. Credit exhaustion, authentication, and workspace-safety boundaries still stop explicitly.

Getting started

1. Install the Kendr Code package for your operating system and CPU, then reload VS Code when prompted.
2. Open a local project folder in VS Code. The bundled runtime starts automatically; Kendr Desktop is not required.
3. Open the Kendr panel and sign in using an email code or Continue in browser. The email form uses server-provided resend and expiry timing when available. If a saved session cannot be checked during a temporary outage, use Retry saved session.
4. Click the Kendr logo on the right to open the Chats screen, then choose a conversation or select New chat.
5. Click the Kendr logo on the left to open Sessions, then start a new session or select an existing one.
6. Review the displayed project path and explicitly trust it when you want Kendr to work with that folder.
7. Select Add Model or Provider Account, connect a subscription, API, hosted service, or local runtime, and choose a model on one of its compatible interaction modes.

Set up local models is also available from the sign-in screen. This performs local setup without enabling hosted services or changing privacy consent. A Kendr account is not required for an independently configured, executable provider connection, including local Ollama. A runtime in Privacy Mode or Local-only Mode must permit hosted sign-in before account login can complete. The sign-in screen provides recovery guidance when account or runtime verification cannot complete.

Default startup and the legacy auto setting use only the bundled local runtime. They do not launch Desktop as a fallback when startup fails. Get Kendr Desktop is an optional promotional download, not a requirement or a runtime repair. Desktop integration is available only when explicitly selected in advanced settings. Connect to Kendr Server explicitly selects an external server; if unavailable, it falls back to the bundled runtime, not Desktop. External tokens are stored in VS Code SecretStorage, not in settings or workspace files. Connect to Kendr Server remains in the Command Palette for intentionally managed or remote kendr serve processes.

Keyboard shortcuts and editor integration

A selection attaches as a line-bounded context chip and is read from the saved file when the message is sent. Terminal output lands in the draft as a fenced block, bounded to its last 12,000 characters. Images stay on the host until the turn starts, then upload to the task; models without vision receive a textual description. The Get started with Kendr Code walkthrough (Help → Get Started) covers the same flow. In multi-root windows, Choose Workspace Folder selects the folder Kendr binds to.

Sessions and chat

The left Sessions view is the durable conversation navigator. Its title actions create a session, search, and refresh the list. Conversations from every Kendr project are grouped into Pinned, Needs attention, Recent, Older, and Archived. Selecting a session focuses the right chat, switches to its project context, and attaches the chat to that conversation. Session context actions can pin, archive, unarchive, fork, rename, remove, or open a conversation in an editor tab. Forking can target another project without replacing the original conversation.

New Conversation opens an empty composer immediately and creates the durable session only when you send its first message. For Git projects, select Current workspace or Isolated worktree directly in that composer.

The right sidebar separates navigation from conversation work. Its Chats screen contains search and full conversation rows; selecting one opens a focused thread with safe rich Markdown, code and message copy actions, prompt history, slash commands, context chips, bounded file attachments, and an auto-sizing composer. Running turns can be stopped or steered without losing the session.

Type @ in the composer to search workspace paths and insert a file reference without leaving the keyboard. Kendr shows the current usage against the selected model's advertised context window and warns as it approaches the limit. Use /compact or Kendr Code: Compact Conversation Context to ask the backend to condense an inactive conversation while preserving its durable history.

Models and providers

The extension can create model connections through its own standalone backend or read the same safe catalog from Kendr Desktop. It supports local Ollama models and OpenAI-compatible local or self-hosted runtimes such as LM Studio, vLLM, and llama.cpp, as well as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google AI, xAI/Grok, Kendr Hosted, and supported subscription-runtime connections. Choose Provider subscription in chat or run Kendr Code: Connect Provider Subscription to see the reviewed account-login catalog. OpenAI Codex can use provider-managed ChatGPT login through the official runtime. Cataloged methods that are not safe or permitted to execute remain visible with their exact unavailable reason. The current OpenAI Codex preview appears in Ask and Plan in Kendr Code; it supports compatible research and code-review surfaces but does not enable full Agent mode or act as an OpenAI API-key replacement.

The model picker groups choices by connection and labels each route Local or Cloud. It shows only ready, enabled, policy-eligible routes compatible with the selected Agent, Ask, or Plan mode. Choose Find local models with Ollama directly in the picker for local discovery, or Connect another model provider for subscriptions, APIs, and other runtimes. The only + in the composer is the workspace-file attachment control.

Kendr Hosted exposes every entitled text-generation route to Agent mode. Models with native tool calling use it directly; other hosted text models use Kendr's constrained coding-action transport, so the model list is not artificially limited to tool-advertising routes.

Use Kendr Code: Detect Local Models to test the standard loopback endpoints for Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM, and llama.cpp and connect a detected server without typing its URL.

Provider credentials, endpoints, and billing identities remain backend-side; they are never copied into the chat webview or regular VS Code settings. A turn or inline completion carries only the selected model, connection, and execution-route identifiers, preventing a same-named model on another account from being selected accidentally.

Coding capabilities

• Git-aware local and isolated-worktree sessions.
• Explicit active-file, selection, diagnostics, rich @ file references, and bounded multi-file context.
• Model-aware context-window usage, warning thresholds, and manual compaction.
• Inline approvals and structured questions from the coding agent.
• Native per-file diff review, editable plan review, checkpoints, and conversation rewind.
• Pinned, archived, forked, and cross-project conversations.
• Project branches, skills, MCP assignments, and capability controls.
• Editable workspace memories and delegated-agent activity.
• Detected app previews opened through VS Code's Simple Browser.
• Optional fill-in-the-middle and same-line next-edit suggestions.

Commands

Security and privacy

Kendr Code does not infer project trust from an open folder. File changes, approvals, capability changes, and checkpoint restores remain explicit and are handled by the Kendr backend's audited authority paths. The standalone service binds only to a random loopback port, uses a new random bearer token for every launch, verifies the bundled executable and runtime tree against its source-bound packaged manifest, and uses a separate owned supervisor. By default, kendr.code.keepRuntimeRunning keeps ongoing work alive after VS Code closes. Reopening authenticates the private per-storage descriptor, verifies its bundled artifact binding, and reattaches. Project windows share that runtime, while each task remains bound to its registered, trusted workspace. Closing a window only detaches from an existing shared runtime, even if the setting was changed while connected. Switching runtime modes or cancelling startup also preserves shared work; switching back reattaches to a compatible existing runtime. Explicit Stop Runtime affects all windows using that runtime. To use foreground ownership that ends with the extension, disable the setting and explicitly stop the existing shared runtime before reconnecting. The supervisor attempts at most three recoveries in 60 seconds after unexpected backend exits. It does not start on OS login or survive shutdown of the machine. Browser, editor, and other tools that require an open VS Code host remain unavailable while it is closed; pending approvals still wait for the user. Microsoft signs Marketplace-delivered VSIX packages; native-signed Kendr runtimes add another verification layer where a platform signing identity is available.

Attachments are restricted to files inside the selected workspace, reject binary and unavailable files, and use bounded context budgets. Hosted-provider credentials and local-provider configuration remain backend-side. Account sessions and local API tokens are kept in VS Code SecretStorage and are not exposed to the chat webview.

Browser sign-in uses OAuth authorization code flow with PKCE. The callback returns only to the authenticated loopback runtime, and refresh tokens remain in VS Code SecretStorage.

Retry-safe API calls use bounded deadlines, server-directed backoff, and idempotency protection. Event streams detect stale connections and resume from the last durable cursor with duplicate suppression, so reconnecting does not repeat completed events.

Inline completion is disabled by default. When enabled, it sends only a bounded prefix and suffix from the visible document plus non-content request metadata.

Remote workspaces

For Remote SSH, dev containers, or WSL, install the matching Kendr Code platform package in the remote workspace extension host. Its bundled backend then runs in the same environment as the workspace. External runtime mode remains available when you intentionally operate a separate kendr serve process.

Compatibility

Kendr Code supports VS Code 1.90 and newer. Standalone release packages are produced for Windows x64 and arm64, Linux x64 and arm64, and macOS x64 and arm64. Release automation verifies platform signing or notarization where the operating system provides it, verifies signed checksums and provenance for Linux, and publishes checksums, a CycloneDX SBOM, and SLSA/in-toto provenance with each release set. VS Code 1.106 and newer show the dedicated right-sidebar chat launcher. Earlier supported versions keep Sessions and a Chat fallback in the left Activity Bar.

Support

Visit kendr.org or email support@kendr.org. The public extension is available on the Visual Studio Marketplace.