Loadout for VS Code
Loadout brings your personal AI-agent context into every repo you open—automatically equipped in Copilot Chat and Cursor. Your load CLI manages the context; this extension opens the studio and triggers refreshes.
Context lives in your local ~/.config/loadout/config.toml. For each repo, loadout renders a gitignored overlay file your AI tools read on every request — .github/instructions/loadout.instructions.md for Copilot Chat in VS Code, .cursor/rules/loadout.mdc for Cursor ("Loadout: Open Overlay File" shows you the one in use).
How it works
- Install the extension from the marketplace, then restart VS Code or Cursor.
- Set up your context — on first run the extension offers setup and, when you accept, opens the Loadout Studio panel. Nothing is written until you say yes.
- Open any repo—Loadout detects your profile and refreshes context automatically.
- Copilot Chat or Cursor reads it—both tools pick up the context on every request, so your AI tools always know your stack, conventions, and personal guidance.
Your load install wins
If you have load installed via curl | bash or a package manager, that CLI always takes precedence—the extension never updates it. The bundled binary (macOS/Linux only) is a fallback for fresh installs.
- macOS (arm64, x64)
- Linux (x64, arm64)
- Windows: coming with loadout's Windows support
For the studio
When this extension opens the studio, it sets LOADOUT_STUDIO_HOST (vscode or cursor) in the child process's environment. load ignores this today — it's a forward-compat signal so studio can later detect it's running inside an IDE and customize itself for embedding.
Links
Cursor note
Cursor keeps unpinned sidebar icons in the activity bar's … overflow menu. If the Loadout backpack isn't visible next to the other icons, open the overflow menu, right-click Loadout, and pin it.
