TCP Client for VS Code

Talk to any TCP server without leaving your editor.

TCP Client brings a full-featured TCP socket client straight into VS Code — no terminal, no external tools, no context switching. Connect to any server, send text or binary messages, and watch responses appear in a clean, timestamped log.

TCP Client in action

Features

🔌 Connect to any TCP server Enter host:port, hit Connect. A status dot shows connection state at a glance — grey when idle, amber while connecting, green when connected.

⌨️ Send any message Plain text in UTF-8, ASCII, Latin-1, or UTF-16 LE. Binary data via escape sequences: \xFF, \x00, \n, \r, \t, \\. Press Ctrl+Enter to send.

📋 Timestamped response log Every response is logged with a precise timestamp and round-trip response time in milliseconds.

💾 Persistent state Server address, encoding, and draft message survive panel close/reopen and VS Code restarts.

How to Use

Open the Command Palette → TCP Client: Open Panel
Enter your server address (e.g. localhost:9000) and click Connect
Type a message — use escape sequences for binary data
Press Send or Ctrl+Enter
Watch responses appear in the log with timestamps and response times

Escape Sequences

Sequence	Meaning
`\xHH`	Raw byte (e.g. `\xFF`)
`\n`	Newline (0x0A)
`\r`	Carriage return (0x0D)
`\t`	Tab (0x09)
`\\`	Literal backslash
`\0`	Null byte (0x00)

Use Cases

Debug network services — test API servers, databases, or custom daemons directly from VS Code
IoT & embedded — send crafted binary packets to devices
Protocol exploration — experiment with custom or undocumented protocols
Performance testing — measure round-trip latency with built-in response timers

License

MIT

TCP Client