AI Keep Clean (AKC)
Why use three separate tools for themes, rainbow indent, and preset workflows? AKC combines all three in one extension and keeps the setup usable across repositories for the whole team.
Take control of how your VS Code workspace looks — color-code your workspaces so you always know which project is open, add visible indent and bracket hierarchy guides to deep code, and run AI-powered file and directory comparisons — all from a single activity bar panel.
💡 For the full experience connect free local Ollama — AI theme suggestions, vibes, and file/directory compare all benefit from a local model. Works completely offline, no AI API key required.
Why install this?
You work across multiple projects and lose track of which workspace is which.
Assign distinct colors to each workspace's status bar, title bar, and side bar. One glance tells you where you are.
AKC gives you the main visuals in one view: workspace color coding, design-mode styling, live settings UI, and indent hierarchy overlays.
Your deeply nested code is hard to follow.
Rainbow indent guides and colored bracket overlays make hierarchy visible at a glance, while workspace settings and presets keep the overall look consistent without hand-editing JSON.
What You Get
- Theme switching made easy — change workspace look and apply presets in seconds, without hand-editing JSON
- Workspace color coding — status bar, title bar, side bar, editor, panel per workspace
- Indent & hierarchy overlays — rainbow indent guides and bracket highlights on any language
- Workspace Presets — built-in and custom presets, per-language assignment, import/export (Pro)
- External theme library support — load up to 250 validated
tinted themes in one flow
- AI-generated themes (Ollama) — generate new theme suggestions from your current workspace context
- AI Compare — file and directory diff via Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
- Live preview — see color changes before applying, no guesswork
Main Views (Activity Bar)
- Workspace Settings
- Workspace Presets
- Indent & Hierarchy Settings
- AI / KI Settings
- AI Models
- AI Guide
- License
Presets and Licensing
AKC works in Free mode out of the box.
Free includes:
- Fast workspace theme switching with AKC presets
- One-click
tinted source loading (validated catalog, up to 250 entries)
- Up to 10 AI theme suggestions per local day
Activation unlocks premium preset workflows:
- Unlimited AI theme suggestions
- AI Compare features
- Preset import
- Preset export
- Higher custom preset limits
- Higher workspace limits
Activation steps:
- Open
License in the AKC Activity Bar.
- Copy the device hash or activation URL shown by the extension.
- Complete activation on the ready-4-it website.
- Paste the returned
R4IT.<payload>.<signature> token and activate locally.
| Feature |
Free |
Trial (14 d) |
Pro |
| Workspace color coding |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
| Built-in presets |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
| AI theme suggestions |
10/day |
unlimited |
unlimited |
| AI Compare (file/dir) |
— |
✅ |
✅ |
| Preset import/export |
— |
✅ |
✅ |
| Custom presets |
1 |
3 |
150 |
| Workspaces |
25 |
50 |
unlimited |
| Activations |
— |
2 |
2 |
License status is shown in the status bar (AKC Free | Trial | Full).
Quick Start
- Open
Workspace Settings from the AKC activity bar.
- Preview and apply a theme setup.
- Open
Workspace Presets to apply AKC presets, load tinted, or save your own.
- Configure AI provider/model if you want AI Compare features.
Supported Preset Sources
Current source list in Workspace Presets -> Preset Browser -> Source:
URL/source support status:
- Direct URL import: intentionally not supported
- Local file import (
Import button): supported
Import workflow (recommended):
- In AKC open
Workspace Presets.
- Use source
tinted and click Import to load validated tinted presets.
- For local JSON files, click
Import and select a local .json file.
Accepted file types in current AKC import flow:
- VS Code theme JSON with
colors
- AKC preset export JSON array
AKC strengths in this area:
- Quality pipeline for imported themes (sanitize, compensate, validate, targeted repair)
- Readability-focused contrast checks for critical UI pairs
- Stable preview/apply flow with workspace/global scope controls
- Save current workspace colors as reusable presets
Security and Privacy
- Webviews use strict CSP and external scripts only
- API keys stay in your local VS Code settings/secret storage
- Workspace styling changes are applied explicitly by user action
AI Safety Controls
When using AI Compare (Ollama or OpenAI-compatible endpoints), AKC includes guardrails to reduce accidental data exposure and prompt-injection impact:
- Request size cap:
aikeepclean.ai.maxRequestChars truncates overly large AI requests and shows a warning.
- One-time consent for remote providers: when using non-local endpoints, AKC asks for explicit consent before sending requests.
- Optional sanitized request logging (opt-in):
aikeepclean.ai.debugRequestLog.enabled can log safe request metadata (never API keys).
- File-level opt-out: add
akc:no-ai or aikeepclean:no-ai to a file to suppress AI requests for that file.
Important Notes
- Git workflows are not part of AKC.
Use the sibling extension
r4it-AiKeepGitClean for Git automation.
- For detailed change history, see
CHANGELOG.md.
FAQ & Troubleshooting
No AI suggestions showing?
Check the daily free limit (10/day on Free tier), your license status, and that Ollama is running with a model pulled (ollama pull llama3).
AI Compare not working?
Requires Trial or Pro license. Verify the provider URL in AI Settings and that the selected model is available.
Ollama errors / connection refused?
Start Ollama (ollama serve), check the base URL in AKC AI Settings (default: http://localhost:11434), and pull the model you selected.
Where do I get a license?
Visit ready-4-it.com/akc to start a Trial or purchase Pro.
Lost activation token or need help?
Contact support@ready-4-it.com or visit ready-4-it.com/support.
Workspace colors not applying?
Make sure you click Apply in Workspace Settings and check whether the scope is set to Workspace or Global.
Accepted design not applied / colors look wrong?
Check the status bar — each workspace has a separate Dark and Light mode. Make sure you applied the preset to the correct mode (☀️ Light or 🌙 Dark).
What does clicking the AKC item in the status bar do?
It opens a PowerShell terminal styled with the colors of your current VS Code workspace.
"Close All" button not showing in the status bar?
Click the AKC status bar item once or twice to activate the context-driven status bar for AKC.
Status bar click triggers security warnings?
This is a Microsoft certificate issue on some systems. Add code.exe (VS Code) to your antivirus exclusion list to prevent it from intercepting VS Code's internal commands.
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