Remote Shell Extension v5.0.0

VS Code extension for managing Creatio deployments, remote debugging, and site operations.

📚 Full documentation with screenshots: Remote Shell Documentation (Confluence)

🚀 What's New in v5.0.0

This is a major update that transforms Remote Shell from a simple Angular hot-reload tool into a full-featured Creatio site management platform. Previously Remote Shell could only deploy Angular builds (shell, system-designer, schema-view) to a Creatio site. Now it includes:

• RemoteShell Creatio Package — a server-side gateway (RemoteShellGateway) installed on your Creatio site that enables deep integration: SQL execution, log viewing, schema search, remote debugging, Redis cache management, and more
• 17 Micro-Frontends — specialized tool panels that open inside VS Code or in a browser, each focused on a specific task
• Package & Composable App Deployment — deploy SVN workspace packages and composable applications directly to Creatio sites
• Telegram Bot + AI Copilot Bridge — control your Creatio site from Telegram and chat with GitHub Copilot through the bot
• Feature Toggles & System Settings Management — toggle features and edit system settings without opening the Creatio UI
• Code Search — full-text search across all C#, JS, SQL, and Process schemas on a live Creatio site
• macOS / Linux Support — the installer now detects the platform and uses the correct build toolchain
• Bug Fixes — fixed auto-refresh site issues, improved watcher stability, and more

📦 Installation

Fresh install

1. Install this extension from the VS Code marketplace (publisher: mykyta-olkhovskyi)
2. Click the 🐚 icon in the sidebar
3. Everything installs automatically:
   • Clones the remoteshell repository next to your monorepo
   • Builds the backend, Angular client, and all micro-frontends
   • Starts the API server on port 52738

Update from pre-GitHub version

1. Delete the old remoteshell folder located next to your creatio-ui monorepo
2. Update this extension to the latest version
3. The extension will detect that the app is missing and reinstall it from the new GitHub repository

Script-based (without extension)

node remote-shell.js install
node remote-shell.js shell <your_site_url>

macOS / Linux

The installer supports macOS and Linux. The same VS Code extension flow works — just make sure you have dotnet SDK 8+ and node 18+ installed. The installer will use deploy_remote_shell.sh instead of the PowerShell script.

🧩 Micro-Frontends

All micro-frontends are available as tabs in VS Code (via the sidebar) or as standalone browser windows. They connect to a live Creatio site through the RemoteShell API.

SQL Console

Execute SQL queries directly on a Creatio site with syntax highlighting, autocomplete, and a scrollable results table.

Logs Viewer

Browse structured logs from a Creatio site with level/logger/date filters, search, color-coded severity, expandable stack traces, and pagination (328K+ records).

Deploy History

Track deployment operations per settings/app with status, duration, and error info. Shows Angular and static file transfer results.

Debugger

Remote C# debugger for Creatio. Build packages for debug instrumentation, set breakpoints, pause/continue execution, and view source code — all without Visual Studio attached. Uses Roslyn-based instrumentation through the RemoteShell gateway.

API Explorer (Swagger)

Scan all WCF/REST endpoints on a Creatio site, view their schemas, parameters, and execute API calls directly. Supports custom headers and request bodies.

Type Browser

Browse .NET types, assemblies, methods, and properties loaded on a Creatio site. Search by namespace or class name, inspect return types and parameters.

Cache Viewer

Search, inspect, and delete Redis cache keys on a Creatio site. View key types, TTL, value sizes, and full Redis server statistics.

Site Manager

At-a-glance site health dashboard: framework type, RemoteShell/ClioGate status, compilation errors, package count, Creatio version. Quick actions: restart site, flush Redis, compile (incremental or full rebuild), clear feature cache, compile for debug.

Telegram Bot + Copilot

Configure and run a Telegram bot that bridges to your Creatio site. Execute /sql, /logs, /restart, /compile commands from Telegram. Includes a Copilot proxy bridge — plain text messages are forwarded to GitHub Copilot via the VS Code Language Model API, so you can chat with AI from Telegram.

AI Skills

Browse, filter, and execute Creatio Copilot AI Skills (CopilotIntent schemas). View skill metadata, prompt templates, model names, input/output parameters, and run skills directly.

Code Search

Full-text search across all C#, JavaScript, SQL, and Process schemas on a live Creatio site. Supports case-sensitive search, regex mode, schema type filters, match highlighting, and full source code viewer.

Features & Settings

Manage Creatio Feature Toggles and System Settings without opening the Creatio UI. Toggle features on/off, create new features, edit setting values, create new settings.

Schema Analysis

Analyze the inheritance hierarchy of Creatio schemas. View all override levels across packages, compare any two levels side-by-side with Diff, visualize the inheritance Graph, and see the final Merged code with color-coded blame annotations showing which package contributed each line. Supports schema search, type filtering (ClientUnit, SourceCode, Entity, etc.), Parent/Child navigation, and "Who uses this?" dependency lookup.

Script Packs

⚠️ In active development and testing

Manage and execute ScriptPack packages (.csx scripts) on a Creatio site. Browse installed ScriptPacks and their scripts, scaffold new packs from templates (Empty, CRUD API, Report), execute scripts with parameters, and view execution history.

Site Monitoring

Real-time performance monitoring and health checks for a Creatio site. Three tabs:

• Site Monitoring — Application metrics (CPU Time, Memory, Threads, Handles, Sessions, Uptime) + Redis metrics (Hit Ratio, Memory, Keys, Clients) + Top Slow Queries table with full SQL text, execution count, reads, and copy/kill actions
• Performance — Wait Stats, Table Sizes, Missing Indexes
• Health — Health Check Overview verifying: Application alive, Database connection, Redis connection, Licenses, RemoteShell installed, Disk space, Active connections, Configuration compiled, Uptime. Status indicators: ✅ Pass / ⚠️ Warn / ❌ Fail with remediation suggestions

Supports auto-refresh with configurable interval.

Auto Deploy

Automated deployment of Creatio sites through TeamCity integration. Features:

• Deploy Cards — preconfigured deployment cards with full site configuration: build type, version, framework (.NET Framework / .NET Core), FreedomUI, Composable App, DB settings, Identity Service, licenses, test users, S3 storage, web farm mode, and more
• Build Lookup — search available builds by type and version
• Running Builds — monitor running builds with progress

One-click Deploy triggers a TeamCity build with optional auto-install of RemoteShell and auto-registration of the site.

🏗 Architecture

┌────────────────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────────┐
│  VS Code Extension         │────▶│  Angular SPA         │
│  (sidebar WebView)         │     │  (port 52738)        │
└────────────────────────────┘     └──────────┬──────────┘
                                              │
                                   ┌──────────▼──────────┐
                                   │  ASP.NET Core API    │
                                   │  REST + SignalR      │
                                   │  ~108 endpoints      │
                                   └──────────┬──────────┘
                                              │
                                   ┌──────────▼──────────┐
                                   │  Creatio Site        │
                                   │  RemoteShellGateway  │
                                   │  (installed package) │
                                   └─────────────────────┘

• VS Code Extension — hosts the Angular SPA in a sidebar WebView, opens micro-frontend panels in editor tabs
• ASP.NET Core Backend — REST API proxy that holds site configurations and communicates with Creatio
• Angular Web Client — main UI for site/settings management, watcher control, and MFE launcher
• Micro-Frontends — Vite + TypeScript apps (SQL, logs, cache, debugger, etc.)
• RemoteShell Gateway — Creatio server package that exposes APIs for debugging, SQL, logs, cache, etc.

🔄 Angular Hot-Reload (Original Feature)

Remote Shell's original capability: build Angular apps in watch mode and hot-deploy them to a Creatio site in real-time.

Quick start with the script

# Place remote-shell.js in your monorepo root, then:
node remote-shell.js shell <your_site_url>

This will:

1. Clone/update the remoteshell repository
2. Start the API
3. Build app.studio-enterprise.shell in watch mode
4. Automatically send file changes to the site via the RemoteShell API

For system-designer:

node remote-shell.js client <your_site_url>

📦 Package & Composable App Deployment

Deploy SVN workspace packages and Composable Applications to Creatio sites.

SVN Workspace Packages

Packages from the SVN workspace (PackageStore) can be installed directly to a site through the Site Manager or the API:

POST /api/sites/install-package/{siteId}?packageName=MyPackage

Composable Applications

Composable Apps can be built and deployed:

POST /api/composable-apps/build    — Build a composable app
POST /api/composable-apps/deploy   — Deploy to a Creatio site

🤖 Telegram Bot & Copilot Bridge

The Telegram bot allows controlling your Creatio site remotely:

• /sql SELECT TOP 10 * FROM Contact — execute SQL
• /logs — view recent error logs
• /restart — restart the site
• /compile — compile configuration
• /copilot <question> — ask GitHub Copilot (proxied through VS Code)

Copilot Bridge: When VS Code is open with the Remote Shell extension, the bot proxies messages to GitHub Copilot via the VS Code Language Model API. The extension polls the backend for pending requests, processes them through Copilot, and returns the response.

⚙️ Configuration

appsettings.json Configuration

• DevFileMode — true stores files in the repository, false stores in /deployment/...
• CacheTimeSpanMinutes — cache lifetime for Quick Transfer (unregistered site history)
• WatcherDebounceTimeMs — debounce time for file system watcher (ms)
• MonorepositoryLocalPath — optional path to your local monorepo
• ProcessingQueueOptions.CombineStrategySizeLimitKb — max size (KB) for combined transfer
• ProcessingQueueOptions.CombineStrategyCountLimit — max files for combined transfer
• ProcessingQueueOptions.BrowserType — browser type for Selenium auto-refresh
• ProcessingQueueOptions.ArchiveStrategySupportServers — servers allowed to use archive strategy
• LocalWebhookPort — port for Node process metrics in NodeWatch mode (default: 9099)

🔗 Links

• Repository
• API Reference (INSTRUCTIONS.md)
• Full Documentation