Open .zst compressed files directly in VS Code — no terminal needed.
Features
Smooth scroll mode — streams and renders the file page by page with a
sliding 3-page window. Works on files of any size.
Decompress & open — decompresses to a temp file and opens it as a real
VS Code document (Rainbow CSV, language servers, all extensions active).
Temp file is auto-deleted on close.
Syntax highlighting — JSON/NDJSON via highlight.js, rainbow column
coloring for CSV/TSV.
Full-file search — ⌘F opens a search bar that searches across all
decoded pages with regex and case-sensitive modes. ↵ / ⇧↵ to navigate
matches, jumping pages as needed.
Files larger than ~12 GB (2 GB compressed) automatically open in smooth
scroll mode.
The extension currently hardcodes /opt/homebrew/bin/zstd (Apple Silicon
Homebrew path). If your zstd is elsewhere, update ZSTD_PATH in the
source or open an issue for auto-detection support.
Usage
Click any .zst file in the Explorer. A quick pick appears:
Option
When to use
Smooth scroll
Large files, quick inspection
Decompress & open
Need Rainbow CSV, find-in-file, extensions
Supported inner formats
Extension
Rendering
.ndjson.zst, .jsonl.zst, .json.zst
highlight.js JSON
.csv.zst, .tsv.zst
Rainbow column colors
.txt.zst, .log.zst
Plaintext
Everything else
Plaintext
Known limitations
zstd path is hardcoded for Apple Silicon Homebrew.
Search only covers already-decoded pages while streaming; re-trigger after
"fully loaded" appears for complete results.
