Ornis for the editor

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A coding agent for VS Code, Cursor and Antigravity, run in Europe by Orneos. Ornis has its own panel: it is not a model plugged into the editor’s chat.

The activity bar holds your account, the rolling 24-hour usage and your sessions. Each conversation is an editor tab beside the code, and several can work at once. A grey dot marks a session whose tab is open, a green dot one that is working, and an amber dot one that waits for your answer.

Three modes

Pick one in the input, or press Shift+Tab.

• Agent finds, reads, edits and runs commands in the open folder until the work is done, then says what changed and how to check it.
• Plan reads, may ask you questions, then writes a single plan in .ornis/plans/. “Run the plan” hands it to Agent.
• Question answers, with no tools.

Execution permissions

Choose independently of Agent / Plan / Question, directly below the input:

The choice applies to the current open chat. New or reopened chats start in Review. Change it between turns; Plan and Question keep their tool restrictions. Sensitive files, protected paths and detected destructive or external operations still ask for approval. Commands run with your account permissions, without a sandbox: scripts can perform actions that cannot be inferred from their name.

Ornis now continues for up to 250 model calls per turn by default, instead of 25 (adjustable up to 1,000 with ornis.maxSteps). Long turns summarize context while working; three identical consecutive tool batches with unchanged results pause the agent. Stop remains available. Longer turns consume more quota; Continue is offered at the limit.

What it does

• Sees what you see. The open file, your selection and the file’s errors go with the message (each can be removed). @ cites a file, @file#L10-20 a few lines. Drag a file from the Explorer (hold Shift) or paste a screenshot.
• Shows its work. The model’s reasoning, folded once the answer starts. Reads are grouped, each edit shows its diff, each command streams into its card and into an “Ornis” terminal. A task list follows longer jobs.
• Makes approvals clear. The approval shows the real diff, with “View in editor” to read it in the diff editor first. “Always for this chat” covers later edits, never a secret, a protected folder (.git, .vscode, CI workflows) or a command that deletes. Refuse with a reason and Ornis takes it into account.
• Undoes anything. “Undo these changes” on any turn puts its files back, including files it created. “Go back here” on an earlier message also removes the messages after it. A file you changed since is shown before anything moves.
• Checks itself. After an edit, the errors the editor now reports in that file go back to the model.
• Stays fast on long work. The context ring beside Send shows how full the conversation is; past it, the start is summarized automatically (or now, with /compact).
• Lives in the editor. Right-click a selection: Add to the conversation (Ctrl+Alt+K), Explain, Fix. A lightbulb “Fix with Ornis” on any error. A status bar item while Ornis works or waits. A notification when it is done and you are elsewhere. Open tabs come back after a reload.

Commands

Type / in the input: /help, /new, /clear, /compact, /remember, /undo, /export, /agent, /plan, /question. A file .ornis/commands/name.md becomes /name; $ARGUMENTS receives what follows it. ↑ in an empty input brings back your previous messages, Esc stops the turn.

The project notebook

On the first message, Ornis reads, in this order: .ornis/rules.local.md, .ornis/rules.md, ORNIS.md, then AGENTS.md (or CLAUDE.md). /remember … writes a note in .ornis/memory/. Long outputs go to .ornis/tmp/ (cleared after 7 days). The notebook is never created in the home folder or at the filesystem root.

Security

• The account is the Orneos one: “Sign in” opens the Orneos page in the browser (second factor included). The extension exchanges the app password for an ornc_ token and revokes that password. Only the token and the gateway address stay, in the editor’s secret storage.
• Secrets (.env, keys, credentials, tokens… plus your own patterns in ornis.secretPatterns) are asked before every read and never attached.
• In Review, commands that write or run another program wait for approval. Explicit paths outside the folder still require approval in Autonomous. Wiping the disk, formatting or a fork bomb are refused.
• In an untrusted folder (Restricted Mode), Ornis runs no command, reads no project instructions, and asks before every edit.
• Questions and answers are never logged.

Settings

ornis.reasoning (high, medium, low, off), ornis.maxSteps (250, maximum 1,000), ornis.commandTimeout (120 s), ornis.autoCompact, ornis.notifications, ornis.secretPatterns.

The editor is for paid plans. The interface follows the editor language: English, French or German (any other language shows French).

Develop

Open this ide/ folder as the workspace root, then the Ornis launch configuration (F5). After a change, reload the extension host.

cd ide && node --test test/*.js          # logic, no editor
sh test/ui/run.sh                         # both views in Chromium, light and dark (Docker)
CODE=/path/to/VSCode-linux-x64 sh test/host/run.sh   # a real editor against a local stand-in gateway (Docker)

CommonJS, no npm dependencies, engine vscode ^1.85.0. The French copy of this file is README.fr.md; notes for changing the code are in AGENTS.md.