Regex Outline is a Visual Studio Code extension that extracts text matching a configurable regular expression from the active document and lists the results in a dedicated Explorer view. Clicking an item in the outline jumps to the matching line in the source file.
Features
Show all matches of a user-defined regular expression from the active document in the Explorer’s “Regex Outline” view.
Click any outline item to jump directly to the corresponding line in the original document.
Configure both the regex pattern and an optional directory filter via VS Code settings.
Supports multiple matches per line and updates automatically when the active editor or document content changes.
Use cases include:
Extracting show command lines from Cisco IOS “show tech” files for quick navigation.
Highlighting common log levels like ERROR, WARN, and INFO in large log files.
Requirements
Visual Studio Code version: ^1.85.0.
The extension activates on startup and when opening plaintext documents.
No additional runtime dependencies are required.
Extension Settings
This extension contributes the following settings:
regexOutline.pattern: Regular expression used to extract matches from documents. Uses JavaScript RegExp with the g flag. Default: ERROR|WARN|INFO.
regexOutline.directory: Limit processing to files under this directory. Accepts absolute paths or paths relative to the workspace root. Default: empty string.
If the pattern is empty, no results will be listed.
regexOutline.directory is evaluated via a simple prefix match on the file’s absolute path; consider ending the path with a separator (e.g., /) to avoid unintended matches.
Very large files or permissive patterns (including those that can match empty strings) may lead to many results and slower updates.
Navigation jumps to the start of the matching line (column 0), not the exact character offset.
Only the currently active editor’s document is processed; if no editor is active, the view will be empty.
Release Notes
0.0.2
Initial public release of Regex Outline.
Added Explorer view (“Regex Outline”) listing regex matches.
Added “Regex Outline: Refresh” command.
Added regexOutline.pattern and regexOutline.directory settings.
Following extension guidelines
Ensure that you've read through the extensions guidelines and follow the best practices for creating your extension.
