ManulEngine — VS Code Extension

Hunt file language support, one-click test runner, configuration UI, and cache browser for ManulEngine browser automation.

Features

🎨 Hunt File Language Support

• Syntax highlighting for .hunt files
• Comment toggling (#)
• Bracket/quote matching and auto-closing
• File icon in the explorer

▶️ Run Hunt Files

Three ways to run a .hunt file:

Output streams live into a dedicated ManulEngine output channel. ✅ / ❌ status is appended on completion.

🧪 Test Explorer Integration

Hunt files appear in the VS Code Test Explorer as top-level test items (one per file). When a hunt is run via Test Explorer:

• Each numbered step is shown as a child item with pass/fail status
• Failed steps display the engine output as the failure message
• Steps that were never reached are marked as skipped
• The step tree is cleared after the run so the explorer shows the correct file-level count

⚙️ Configuration Panel

An interactive sidebar panel for editing manul_engine_configuration.json without touching the file directly.

• Model — Ollama model name (leave blank for heuristics-only mode)
• AI Policy — prior (heuristic as hint) or strict
• AI Threshold — score cutoff before LLM fallback (null = auto)
• AI Always — always call the LLM picker (automatically disabled when no model is set)
• Headless — run browser headless
• Timeouts — action and navigation timeouts in ms
• Controls Cache — enable/disable and set the cache directory
• Log truncation — max length for element names and LLM thoughts in logs
• Ollama status indicator — live dot showing whether Ollama is reachable at localhost:11434, with model autocomplete from the running instance

Changes are saved to manul_engine_configuration.json at the workspace root. A Generate Default Config button creates the file if it doesn't exist yet.

🗂️ Cache Browser

The Cache sidebar tree shows per-site cache entries created by ManulEngine's persistent controls cache. You can:

• Browse sites and their cached page entries
• Clear the cache for a specific site (trash icon on hover)
• Clear all cache entries at once (toolbar button)
• Refresh the tree manually

Requirements

• ManulEngine installed in the workspace or globally:

  pip install manul-engine          # global / user
  # or in a project venv:
  pip install -e .
  

• Python 3.11+
• Playwright browsers (installed by ManulEngine's setup)
• Ollama (optional) — only needed for AI-assisted element picking

Auto-detection of the manul executable

The extension probes the following locations in order (platform-aware):

1. Custom path from manulEngine.manulPath setting (if set and exists)
2. .venv/bin/manul in the workspace root
3. ~/.local/bin/manul (pip --user, Linux/macOS)
4. ~/Library/Python/*/bin/manul (pip --user, macOS)
5. ~/.local/pipx/venvs/manul-engine/bin/manul (pipx)
6. /opt/homebrew/bin/manul (Homebrew, Apple Silicon)
7. /usr/local/bin/manul, /usr/bin/manul (system-wide)
8. Shell login init lookup ($SHELL -lc 'command -v manul') — sources fish/zsh/bash/pyenv/conda init so shims are found
9. Windows: %APPDATA%\Python\*\Scripts\manul.exe, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Python\*\Scripts\manul.exe

Extension Settings

Getting Started

1. Install ManulEngine:

   pip install manul-engine
   playwright install chromium
   

2. Open your project folder in VS Code. The extension activates automatically when a .hunt file is present.

3. Run ManulEngine: Generate Default Config from the Command Palette to create manul_engine_configuration.json.

4. Open the ManulEngine activity bar panel to configure Ollama and cache settings.

5. Open or create a .hunt file and click ▶ to run it.

Example Hunt File

@context: Login and verify dashboard
@blueprint: smoke_login

1. NAVIGATE to https://example.com/login
2. Fill 'Email' field with 'user@example.com'
3. Fill 'Password' field with 'secret'
4. Click the 'Sign In' button
5. VERIFY that 'Welcome' is present.
6. DONE.

See the ManulEngine README for the full step reference.

Release Notes

0.0.52

• Hunt file syntax highlighting, Test Explorer integration, configuration panel, cache browser
• Smart manul executable auto-detection across pip, pipx, Homebrew, pyenv, conda, and custom paths
• Per-file workspace root resolution for multi-root workspaces
• PowerShell-aware terminal command (& prefix)
• Shell-specific login flags (bash/zsh vs fish vs sh/dash)
• Fallback cache eviction on transient shell lookup failures
• Font size improvements in the configuration panel