LVKit — View and diff VIs without LabVIEW

View .vi block diagrams and visual before/after diffs directly in VS Code, on a machine with no LabVIEW installed. Powered by LVKit, an open-source tool from PragmaTest.

Features

View - open any .vi in the Explorer and it renders an interactive view of the block diagram instead of the binary-file notice.
Diff - right-click a changed .vi (Source Control or Explorer) and select "Open Visual Diff" to open an interactive before/after diff viewer.

Both open read-only in an editor tab, with zoom/pan and a light/dark diagram-theme toggle that's remembered between sessions.

Nodes LVKit doesn't have a glyph for yet render as labeled boxes.

View — click a .vi in the Explorer.

A .vi open in VS Code as an interactive block diagram

Diff — right-click a changed .vi and select "Open Visual Diff"

The visual before/after diff, opened from the Source Control context menu

Workspace Trust

LVKit runs a local executable against your .vi files, so it needs a trusted workspace — in Restricted Mode VS Code disables it entirely. If a .vi opens as a binary file and the LVKit commands are missing, choose Trust from the Restricted Mode banner.

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`lvkit.path`	`lvkit`	Path to the `lvkit` executable. Leave as `lvkit` to auto-resolve in priority order: project `.venv` → `uv run lvkit` → the bundled binary.
`lvkit.searchPaths`	`[]`	Extra dirs to search for SubVIs (repo root is auto-detected).
`lvkit.diagramTheme`	`auto`	Diagram color theme (`auto`/`light`/`dark`); updated automatically when you cycle the in-viewer theme control.

Trademarks

LVKit is an independent, clean-room project, not affiliated with, authorized by, endorsed by, or sponsored by NI. LabVIEW, NI, and National Instruments are trademarks of National Instruments Corporation, used only to identify the file format LVKit reads.