URLs-LE: Zero Hassle URL Extraction

Pull every URL out of the current file in one keystroke
Markdown, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, JSON, YAML, Properties, TOML, INI, XML

URLs-LE Demo

Useful? A star or rating is how other developers find it — ★ GitHub · ★ Marketplace · ★ Open VSX

What it does

Open a file, press Ctrl+Alt+U (Cmd+Alt+U on Mac), and every URL in the document lands in a new editor — deduplicate and sort it from there. Works in VS Code and in VS Code–based editors like Cursor and VSCodium (installable from Open VSX).

Link auditing — every link, autolink, and plain URL in Markdown and HTML (code blocks and comments excluded)
Source review — URLs in string literals, template literals, and comments across JS/TS
Config sweep — URLs in JSON strings, YAML values, Java properties, TOML/INI values, and XML (Maven POMs, feeds)

Use it from an AI agent

The same extraction engine runs as an MCP server, so an agent can call it directly instead of you running a command.

Editor	How
VS Code 1.101+	Nothing to install — the extension registers `extract_urls` with agent mode
Zed	URLs-LE — pending review
Claude Code	`claude mcp add urls-le -- npx -y urls-le-mcp`
Cursor, Windsurf, anything else	point it at `npx urls-le-mcp`

extract_urls(content, format?, filename?, dedupe?, maxResults?)

Returns every URL with its protocol and 1-based line and column, capped at 500 by default with meta.truncated so a large file cannot flood the agent's context window.

The server takes content and returns data — it reads no files and makes no network requests of its own. Published as urls-le-mcp on npm and as io.github.nolindnaidoo/urls-le in the MCP registry.

Configuring it by hand — any host with an MCP config file

Most hosts read a JSON config. Add one entry:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "urls-le": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "urls-le-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

-y skips the install prompt on first run. Pin a version if you would rather not track releases — urls-le-mcp@2.2.1.

Prefer not to go through npx on every launch? Install it once and point at the binary instead:

npm install -g urls-le-mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "urls-le": { "command": "urls-le-mcp" }
  }
}

It speaks MCP over stdio and needs no environment variables, no API key and no configuration of its own. To check it before wiring it into anything:

echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}' | npx -y urls-le-mcp

That prints the tool list and exits — if you see extract_urls, the server works.

Supported formats

Format	Language IDs	Notes
Markdown	`markdown`	Fenced code blocks and inline code excluded
HTML	`html`	`<!-- -->` comments excluded (multi-line supported)
CSS	`css`	Quoted or bare `url(...)`, `@import`
JavaScript / TypeScript	`javascript`, `typescript`	Strings, template literals, comments
JSON	`json`	String literals only, via jsonc-parser token offsets
YAML	`yaml`	Whole content, comments included
Properties	`properties`	`#`/`!` comment lines excluded
TOML	`toml`	Parsed values only; comments excluded
INI	`ini`	Parsed values only; comments excluded
XML	`xml`	Attributes and text content

Extracted protocols: http, https, ftp, file, mailto (requires an @), tel. Every occurrence is reported with its real line and column — TOML/INI positions are forward-located in the source and can be approximate for repeated identical values. A URL ends at whitespace or a quote/bracket delimiter, so relative links (/docs) and bare domains (example.com) are never extracted, and URLs containing raw spaces extract as space-terminated partials. Trailing ./, are kept — they are legal URL characters.

Commands

Command	Description
`URLs-LE: Extract URLs` (`Ctrl+Alt+U` / `Cmd+Alt+U`)	Extract all URLs from the active document
`URLs-LE: Deduplicate URLs`	Remove duplicate lines from the results
`URLs-LE: Sort URLs`	Sort results alphabetically, by domain, or by length
`URLs-LE: Open Settings`	Open URLs-LE settings
`URLs-LE: Help`	Built-in documentation

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`urls-le.openResultsSideBySide`	`true`	Open results beside the current editor
`urls-le.postProcess.openInNewFile`	`true`	Open results in a new file (when not side-by-side)
`urls-le.copyToClipboardEnabled`	`false`	Also copy results to the clipboard
`urls-le.dedupeEnabled`	`false`	Deduplicate extraction results automatically
`urls-le.notificationsLevel`	`silent`	`all` = every notification, `important` = warnings + errors, `silent` = errors only
`urls-le.safety.enabled`	`true`	Guardrails for very large files
`urls-le.safety.fileSizeWarnBytes`	`1000000`	Refuse extraction above this file size
`urls-le.safety.largeOutputLinesThreshold`	`50000`	Warn above this line count
`urls-le.statusBar.enabled`	`true`	Show the status bar item
`urls-le.telemetryEnabled`	`false`	Local-only event log (see Privacy)

Languages

Twelve languages besides English:

German · Spanish · French · Indonesian · Italian · Japanese · Korean · Portuguese (Brazil) · Russian · Ukrainian · Vietnamese · Chinese (Simplified)

Both halves are covered — the manifest (command titles, setting names and descriptions) and everything shown while the extension runs (notifications, the status bar, the sort quick-pick). The extension follows VS Code's display language, so it matches whatever the editor is already set to; no setting of its own.

Privacy & security

No network access. The extension never fetches, validates, or pings the URLs it extracts — it only reads the text of the active document. The telemetryEnabled setting writes events to a local Output Channel you can inspect (URLs-LE Telemetry); nothing leaves your machine.
The MCP server holds the same line. It takes content as an argument and returns data: no filesystem access, no network calls, no telemetry. Your agent already has file-read tools, so duplicating them inside the server would add a path-traversal surface for no capability. check:mcp-bundle fails the build if the server ever imports something that could reach either.
Error notifications redact home directories and credential-shaped fragments.

Development

bun install
bun run build            # esbuild bundle -> dist/extension.js
bun run typecheck        # tsc --noEmit (includes tests)
bun run test             # vitest unit suite
bun run test:integration # real VS Code extension host
bun run lint             # biome
bun run package          # VSIX into release/

Architecture and conventions live in AGENTS.md. Changes are tracked in CHANGELOG.md.

Performance

Input	Size	Found	Time	Rate	Scan speed
Markdown docs	2.63 MB	50,000	61.14 ms	817,802/sec	43 MB/s
HTML page	1.25 MB	30,000	21.88 ms	1,370,972/sec	57 MB/s
JSON config	1.52 MB	40,000	39.01 ms	1,025,358/sec	38.8 MB/s

Median of 7 runs after warmup, on Apple M5 Pro, 24 GB RAM, Node 24.3.0. Inputs are generated by scripts/benchmark.ts rather than checked in, so the sizes above are exactly what was measured. Reproduce with bun run benchmark.

These are machine-specific and are not asserted in CI — a benchmark that gates a build only tells you how busy the runner was.

Testing

Metric	Coverage
Statements	95.10%
Branches	86.75%
Functions	95.54%
Lines	95.41%

290 test cases across 21 files, plus an integration suite that runs in a real VS Code extension host and an end-to-end test that installs the built .vsix into a clean profile.

Generated from coverage/coverage-summary.json by scripts/coverage-readme.js; CI fails if this section drifts from a fresh run. Reproduce with bun run test:coverage.

Also by nolindnaidoo

Rust — two desktop tools that make up one loop: pixelcoords answers where, pixelactions acts there.

pixelcoords — Freeze your screen, mark regions, get pixel-exact coordinates and crops pixelcoords.dev · crates.io · docs.rs
pixelactions — Consume human-verified coordinates, perform the interaction, confirm it landed pixelactions.dev · crates.io · docs.rs

Contact Developer — GitHub · LinkedIn

URLs-LE

Nolin D Naidoo