NVIDIA NIM Provider

VS Code extension that gives you access exclusively to the best, most powerful reasoning and agentic models available in NVIDIA NIM (DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, Nemotron, MiniMax, Stepfun) directly inside the Copilot Chat interface.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.125.0 or later
• GitHub Copilot extension installed and active
• An NVIDIA NIM API key from build.nvidia.com/models

Installation

From Source

1. Clone this repository.
2. Run npm install && npm run compile.
3. Press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host.

From VSIX

1. Run npm install && npm run package:vsix.
2. Install the generated .vsix file via the Extensions view (Install from VSIX...).

Setup

1. Open Copilot Chat and choose the model picker.
2. Select Manage Models, then add/configure NVIDIA NIM.
3. Paste the API key obtained from build.nvidia.com/models.
4. Select one of the NVIDIA NIM models returned by your account.

You can also run NVIDIA NIM: Manage NVIDIA NIM API Key from the Command Palette. The extension will migrate that key into VS Code's language model provider group so the model picker can resolve NVIDIA NIM models. The VS Code model settings flow is recommended for new setups.

Supported Models

The extension fetches the model list from https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1/models and filters it down to a curated set of elite agentic models, each with a dedicated adapter that tunes temperature, tool-calling system prompts, and reasoning configuration:

When NVIDIA's /models response omits tool-calling capability metadata, chat models are treated as tool-capable so they remain selectable in Copilot Chat Agent mode.

Reasoning

The extension supports native reasoning token rendering via VS Code's proposed LanguageModelThinkingPart API. When a model emits reasoning — either through the reasoning_content stream field or inline think... /think tags (used by Kimi) — it is captured and rendered as collapsible thinking blocks in the chat interface instead of being dumped as raw text.

Configure reasoning effort per model via the Copilot Chat model picker dropdown. Each model exposes its supported reasoning modes (see the table above). The selected mode is sent to the NVIDIA NIM API using the appropriate parameters (reasoning_effort, enable_thinking, or chat_template_kwargs depending on the model).

Settings

• nvidia-nim.reasoningMode — Default reasoning effort when a model doesn't explicitly pass a mode via the dropdown. Defaults to none.
• nvidia-nim.showReasoning — Show reasoning content as plain text in responses (fallback for VS Code versions without LanguageModelThinkingPart support, or for debugging). Defaults to false.

Commands

Usage

1. Open Copilot Chat (Cmd/Ctrl + Alt + I).
2. Select NVIDIA NIM from the provider selector.
3. Choose one of the curated NVIDIA NIM models.
4. (Optional) Use the model dropdown to set the reasoning effort.
5. Start chatting — reasoning appears as collapsible thinking blocks, tool calls are emitted natively, and text-embedded tool-call markers are parsed automatically.

Development

npm install
npm run compile
npm run lint
npm run test

Press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host.

Available Scripts

• npm run compile – TypeScript compilation
• npm run watch – Compile with file watching
• npm run test – Run tests
• npm run lint – ESLint check
• npm run lint:fix – ESLint auto-fix
• npm run format – Prettier formatting
• npm run package:vsix – Build VSIX package

Marketplace Packaging

npm run package:vsix

The command above produces a .vsix that can be uploaded in the VS Code Marketplace publisher portal.

Privacy

• Your API key is stored securely through VS Code's language model provider configuration and, for legacy command-palette setup, VS Code SecretStorage.
• Chat completions and model discovery requests are sent to https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1.