Error & Success Reactor 🔊

The ultimate VS Code extension that reacts to your code with sound — screams when things go wrong, celebrates when they go right. Terminal failures, red squiggles, broken saves, failed builds, crashed debuggers — nothing escapes the scream. Successful commands get a victory sound. Fully customizable with per-sound settings, funny toasts, escalation mode, waveform viewer, DND schedule, and more.

✨ Features at a Glance

• ⚡ 5 Trigger Sources — terminal failures, diagnostic errors, save-with-errors, task failures, debug session crashes
• 🔊 Instant Playback — sound-play npm for ~50ms latency (no shell spawn)
• 🎵 Sound Library — import .mp3 files, per-sound volume/speed/pitch/reverse
• 🎲 Random Sound Mode — separate random toggles for error and success sounds
• 🎉 Success Sounds — plays a different sound when commands succeed (exit code 0)
• 😱 Funny Toasts — 15 randomized hilarious roast messages on every scream
• 🔥 Escalation Mode — sound gets louder and faster as your error streak grows
• 🌙 Do Not Disturb — schedule quiet hours (handles overnight windows)
• 📊 Stats & Counters — daily error count, current streak, lifetime scream counter
• 🎨 Settings Webview — a full GUI panel to manage everything visually
• 📈 Waveform Viewer — visualize any sound file with Web Audio API
• 🔇 Quick Mute — suppress sounds without losing streak/stat tracking
• 🛡️ Guards — cooldown, ignored exit codes, error pattern detection

💻 Platform Support

Advanced audio processing (speed, pitch, reverse) requires ffmpeg on all platforms.

📦 Installation

From VSIX

1. Download error-screamer-2.2.3.vsix
2. In VS Code: Ctrl+Shift+P → Extensions: Install from VSIX...
3. Select the file → reload VS Code
4. Turn your speakers on and write bad code 😈

From Source

git clone https://github.com/DhakadG/ErrorScreamer.git
cd error-screamer
npm install
# Press F5 in VS Code to launch Extension Development Host

📖 User Manual

⚡ Trigger 1: Terminal Failure (always on)

The core trigger. Every time a terminal command exits with a non-zero code, it screams.

Example:

1. Open the integrated terminal
2. Run ls nonexistent or exit 1
3. 🔊 SCREAM!

Also supports error pattern detection — scan terminal output for keywords like Error:, Traceback, etc. even when exit code is 0. Enable via errorScreamer.errorPatternDetectionEnabled.

🔴 Trigger 2: Diagnostic Errors (live, while typing)

Watches your code in real-time. The moment a new Error-severity diagnostic (red squiggle) appears, it screams. Uses a 150ms debounce to avoid spam while typing, and resets its baseline when you switch files.

Example:

1. Open any .js, .ts, .py file
2. Type something broken like const = ;
3. The moment VS Code shows the red squiggle → 🔊 SCREAM!

Only screams when errors increase. Fixing errors does not trigger it.

To turn off: Set errorScreamer.playOnDiagnostics to false.

💾 Trigger 3: Save & Scream

Every time you press Ctrl+S, it checks if the saved file still has Error-severity diagnostics. If it does — scream.

Example:

1. Have a file open with red squiggles
2. Press Ctrl+S
3. 🔊 Caught!

To turn off: Set errorScreamer.playOnSave to false.

🛑 Trigger 4: Task Failure

When a VS Code Task (build scripts, test suites, etc.) exits with a non-zero code, it screams.

How to trigger:

1. Ctrl+Shift+B (Run Build Task) or Terminal → Run Task
2. If the task fails → 🔊 SCREAM!

To turn off: Set errorScreamer.playOnTaskFailure to false.

🐛 Trigger 5: Debug Session Crash

When a debug session terminates (crash, exception, stopped), it screams.

How to test:

1. Create test.py with 1/0
2. Press F5 to debug
3. Python crashes with ZeroDivisionError → 🔊 SCREAM!

To turn off: Set errorScreamer.playOnDebuggerCrash to false.

😱 Funny Toast Messages

When showErrorToast and funnyToasts are both enabled, each scream shows a random hilarious roast:

...and more! (15 total)

🔥 Escalation Mode

The more you mess up, the louder and faster it gets.

1. Enable errorScreamer.escalationEnabled
2. Set a threshold (default: 3 consecutive errors)
3. Each tier above threshold adds volume boost + speed boost
4. Status bar shows $(flame) Escalation tier N!

🌙 Do Not Disturb

Don't want screams during a late-night meeting?

1. Enable errorScreamer.doNotDisturbEnabled
2. Set start/end times (e.g. 23:00 → 08:00)
3. Sounds are silently suppressed during those hours
4. Handles overnight windows correctly

🔇 Quick Enable / Disable

1. Ctrl+Shift+P → Error & Success Reactor: Toggle On/Off — master switch
2. Ctrl+Shift+P → Error & Success Reactor: Quick Mute — mutes sounds, but streak/stats still track

🎵 Custom Sounds

1. Ctrl+Shift+P → Error & Success Reactor: Import Sound File — opens a file picker for .mp3 and asks which category (Error or Success)
2. Or drop any .mp3 into sounds/errors/ or sounds/success/ — it appears automatically
3. Use Error & Success Reactor: Select Error Sound to set the active error sound
4. Each sound has its own Volume / Speed / Pitch / Reverse / Label — all configurable in the Settings panel

Folder structure:

sounds/
  errors/        ← error sounds (.mp3)
    aahh.mp3
    fahhhh.mp3
    ...
  success/       ← success sounds (.mp3)
    mission-passed.mp3
    ...

📊 Stats & Counters

• Status bar (bottom-right) — shows current streak, mute state, escalation tier
• Daily stats — error count per day (last 7 days in the Settings panel)
• Lifetime scream counter — persistent across sessions, shown in Settings panel stats
• Click the status bar item to view today's stats
• Ctrl+Shift+P → Reset Lifetime Scream Counter to start fresh

⚙️ All Settings Reference

Open VS Code Settings (Ctrl+,) and search errorScreamer:

General

Triggers

Detection

Escalation

Do Not Disturb

Per-Sound (stored in global state)

Each sound has: Volume (0–1), Speed (0.5–4×), Pitch (0.5–2×), Reverse, Enabled, Custom Label.

🛠️ All Commands Reference

Press Ctrl+Shift+P and type Error & Success Reactor:

🔧 How It Works

Error & Success Reactor hooks into five VS Code native APIs simultaneously:

All triggers route through a shared guard chain: enabled → muted → DND → cooldown → play → toast → escalation → stats.

Playback pipeline:

1. Fast path — sound-play npm (~50ms, no shell spawn) for normal playback
2. Slow path — platform-specific shell commands with ffmpeg for speed/pitch/reverse

🧪 Testing

npm test          # 130 unit tests
npm run lint      # ESLint

Tests cover: pattern matching, audio filter chains, platform command builders, atempo decomposition, toast pool validation, category-aware sound discovery, and more.

📦 Packaging

npm install -g @vscode/vsce
vsce package --out builds/

VSIX is ~360 KB (17 files) — only sound-play is bundled, devDependencies are excluded.

📜 License

MIT © Error & Success Reactor Contributors

PRs, issues, and feature requests welcome!