RAgents for VS Code

Build and run programmable AI workspaces without leaving your editor.

RAgents combines AI agents, deterministic TypeScript workflows, and interactive mini-apps in a shared workspace. Agents can work independently or in parallel, hand results to one another, and use the same data and functions as the UI. Every run is recorded in an append-only journal, so its state remains inspectable and can be reconstructed after a restart.

The extension brings that workspace into VS Code:

• Work with several environments at the same time: RAgents servers and local profiles.
• Browse runs, agents, mini-apps, files, and journals from the Activity Bar.
• Chat and work with mini-apps in the secondary sidebar or open an app as an editor tab.
• Let a run read, edit, and execute code in the folders of the current VS Code workspace.
• Start a prepared setup with a single click, straight from the overview.

Getting started

Open the RAgents panel in the secondary sidebar, select Settings, then New environment, and add either a server or a local profile.

{
  "ragents.connections": [
    { "name": "Workshop", "url": "https://workshop.example.com" },
    { "name": "Local", "profileFile": "/path/to/ragents.config.core.ts" }
  ]
}

A server connects automatically. A local profile starts when you select Start or create a run. The extension works with every configured environment concurrently; an unavailable one does not block the others.

Servers may require a username and password or an access token. Credentials are stored in VS Code's SecretStorage; renaming an environment keeps them. A server can also provide a client profile, which the extension downloads and runs locally while keeping model access on the server.

The panel

Without an open run the panel shows one page: the environments with their state, the runs of all of them, newest first, and the start templates as a tile grid, grouped by category and searchable. One click on a tile creates the run on that environment, starts it, and opens the work column on the running run; the New run tile opens an empty run whose task you write in the column's chat. With more than one environment every run and every tile names its environment; with a single one that marking disappears.

Everything that is set up happens on the settings page: connect and disconnect, start and stop, sign in, edit and remove. New environment and Edit open a dialog; for a local profile it offers the profile files found in the host folder and fills the name from the file name.

Local workspaces

When a folder is open, the extension registers the current VS Code window as a RAgents workspace. New runs can use its file, shell, and language-server tools. Operations remain restricted to the folders offered by the window.

The host comes from ragents.hostPath when that setting names a checkout or an installed @schlenkr/ragents package. Without it the extension installs the host itself into its own storage: the version a server asks for, or the one this extension was built against for a local profile. It then provisions the tools of the profile and builds its web interface into <data dir>/web/<profile> when that is missing or was built for another version. Node.js 22 and npm are required; a source checkout also requires Git, pnpm, and installed dependencies.

Current limitations

Windows support has not been verified, and workspace shell commands currently require /bin/bash. Browser checks and process inspection run on the server, even when file operations are delegated to the VS Code workspace.

The run column runs in a frame of its server, which VS Code does not reach with its own paste command. The column therefore handles paste, copy, and cut itself, so dictation tools and every other keyboard shortcut for the clipboard work as usual. Should a tool insert text over the accessibility API instead, it needs the setting that pastes through the clipboard.

Source, documentation, and issue tracking are available in the RAgents repository. The host is also published as @schlenkr/ragents.

License: PolyForm Shield 1.0.0.