Add to Agent Context

A VS Code extension that sends the selected content directly to agent extensions, or simply copies a reference to that selection to the clipboard. See How selections are modelled for how selections, including multiple ones, are turned into line ranges.

See Demo for a demo video.

Installation

The extension is published on the Visual Studio Marketplace. In VS Code, open the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X), search for Add to Agent Context or ozoniuss.add-to-agent-context, and click Install. Or install it from the command line:

code --install-extension ozoniuss.add-to-agent-context

You can also install it from a .vsix file:

1. Download the .vsix file from the latest release.

2. Install it from the command line:

   code --install-extension add-to-agent-context-<version>.vsix
   

   Or in VS Code, open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P), run Extensions: Install from VSIX... and pick the downloaded file.

Usage

The idea is similar to Cursor's Ctrl+L: select some code and send it straight to an agent's context, or copy a path:lines reference to paste anywhere. The latter is particularly useful if e.g. you prefer working with agents in the terminal.

In an editor:

• To send the selection to the agent you last sent to, press Ctrl+' (Cmd+' on macOS). The first time, it opens the picker instead. (addToAgentContext.sendToAgent)
• To choose which agent to send the selection to, or to copy a path:lines reference to the clipboard, press Ctrl+Shift+' (Cmd+Shift+' on macOS) and pick from the list. (addToAgentContext.pickAction)
• To do either with the mouse, select text by dragging. A popup appears next to the cursor with an Add to agent button for each available agent, in the order they appear in addToAgentContext.agents, and a Copy to clipboard button.

With nothing selected in the editor, the whole file is sent or copied. See How selections are modelled for what gets sent when you select part of a line, several ranges, and so on.

In the explorer, with one or more files or folders selected:

• To copy their paths to the clipboard, one per line, press Ctrl+' (Cmd+' on macOS). (addToAgentContext.copyFilePaths, which runs VS Code's built-in copyFilePath)
• To copy the paths or add the files to an agent that supports it, press Ctrl+Shift+' (Cmd+Shift+' on macOS) and pick from the list. (addToAgentContext.pickFileAction)

Note that in the explorer, currently Ctrl+' only copies the paths instead of sending them to the last agent like it does in an editor. That's because not all agents have a command that accepts a file URI. In particular, Claude Code can only mention the file open in the active editor, so it can't be sent files or folders from the explorer. I opened anthropics/claude-code#97535 asking for a command that adds a file or folder to the chat, like Codex's chatgpt.addFileToThread. The behavior will change once I find a reliable way to send to last agent.

How the last agent is detected and known limitations

The last agent is simply the last one the extension sent to in this workspace, either with Ctrl+' or by picking it with Ctrl+Shift+'. Switching to another agent's panel and working in it manually will not turn it into the last agent. This is mainly because VS Code does not have a reliable way to determine which panel of an extension was opened / focused last (or at least I haven't found one).

There are ways to work around this. For example, if you always keep your agents in the secondary side bar you can overwrite the keybindings to something like this (you could use cmd+' instead of ctrl+' on macOS):

{
    "key": "ctrl+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.pickAction",
    "when": "editorTextFocus && !auxiliaryBarVisible"
},
{
    "key": "ctrl+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.sendToAgent",
    "args": "claude",
    "when": "editorTextFocus && auxiliaryBarVisible && activeAuxiliary == workbench.view.extension.claude-sidebar-secondary"
},
{
    "key": "ctrl+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.sendToAgent",
    "args": "codex",
    "when": "editorTextFocus && auxiliaryBarVisible && activeAuxiliary == workbench.view.extension.codexSecondaryViewContainer"
}

Default agents

An agent is still listed in the picker when its extension isn't installed, but it is marked as unavailable.

Customizing agents

Agents are configured in settings.json under addToAgentContext.agents:

"addToAgentContext.agents": {
    // add a new agent
    "my-agent": {
        "label": "My Agent",
        "extensionId": "someone.my-agent",
        "command": "myAgent.addSelection",
        "fileCommand": "myAgent.addFile"
    },
    // change one field of a built-in agent, leaving the other ones set to default
    "claude": { "label": "Claude" },
    // remove a built-in agent
    "codex": null
}

The command is invoked once per selected line range, with that range as the editor's only selection, so every range reaches the agent even though agent commands usually read just the primary selection. The fileCommand is invoked once per selected file or folder.

Default keybindings

The extension comes with these default keybindings.

On Windows and Linux:

{
    "key": "ctrl+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.sendToAgent",
    "when": "editorTextFocus"
},
{
    "key": "ctrl+shift+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.pickAction",
    "when": "editorTextFocus"
},
{
    "key": "ctrl+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.copyFilePaths",
    "when": "filesExplorerFocus && !inputFocus"
},
{
    "key": "ctrl+shift+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.pickFileAction",
    "when": "filesExplorerFocus && !inputFocus"
}

On macOS:

{
    "key": "cmd+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.sendToAgent",
    "when": "editorTextFocus"
},
{
    "key": "cmd+shift+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.pickAction",
    "when": "editorTextFocus"
},
{
    "key": "cmd+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.copyFilePaths",
    "when": "filesExplorerFocus && !inputFocus"
},
{
    "key": "cmd+shift+'",
    "command": "addToAgentContext.pickFileAction",
    "when": "filesExplorerFocus && !inputFocus"
}

Just remove them if you only want to use the Command Palette, or update them to whatever works for you. To do that, search for addToAgentContext in Preferences: Open Keyboard Shortcuts, or add an entry to your keybindings.json with the command prefixed by -. See How the last agent is detected and known limitations for an example of custom keybindings.

Demo

Unfortunately my Fedora screen recorder does not show the mouse pointer for whatever reason. Still, I hope it's clear enough what the mouse does in each videos to understand how the extension works.

Use with keyboard shortcuts:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/239e6b06-a1f4-4708-ada0-205dfe9552ba

Use with mouse:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/389899de-4577-46f1-9c24-c3c9f1a6df84

How selections are modelled

The extension works with lines, not characters. Every selection in the editor is turned into the range of lines it covers, and those ranges are what gets copied or sent to an agent. Once you think of your selections as line ranges, the result is predictable:

• A partial line counts as the whole line. Selecting a single word on line 42 gives foo.ts:42.
• Whole-line selections don't spill over. Selecting lines with shift+down or by dragging the line numbers leaves the cursor at the start of the next line. That line has nothing selected, so it isn't included.
• Plain cursors are ignored. A cursor with nothing selected adds no lines. If there is no selection at all, you get the path to the whole file.
• Order doesn't matter. Ranges are sorted by line, whichever order you made the selections in.
• Ranges that share a line are merged. 11-22 and 22-26 become 11-26, and a range inside another one disappears into it. Ranges on neighboring lines, like 1-2 and 3-4, stay separate.

For example:

There are various ways to create selections, especially with keyboard shortcuts. For a simple way to test how this works, you can make multiple selections by holding alt and making selections with the mouse.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to run the extension locally and how to submit changes.