Snowbros Atlas for VS Code

Deterministic engineering intelligence for JavaScript/TypeScript, live in your editor.

This extension is a thin, first-party client for the Snowbros Atlas language server. It does not contain any analysis logic — the Rust engine (sb lsp) remains the single source of truth. The extension starts that server, streams its findings into native VS Code diagnostics, and adds a few convenience commands.

What you get

Live diagnostics — circular imports, dead files, Next.js server/client boundary leaks, unused dependencies, hardcoded secrets, and more, as you open and save files. Severities map onto native Errors, Warnings, Information, and Hints, and clicking a diagnostic jumps to the exact span.
Zero-config startup — the extension finds sb/snowbros on your PATH, honors an explicit atlas.path, or falls back to npx snowbros so it works even before you install anything globally.
Status bar — Atlas Ready / Running / Error at a glance; click it for the project health score.
Commands — analyze, restart, explain a rule, open a report, show health, clear the cache.

Requirements

The extension needs the Atlas binary. Any one of these works:

npm install -g @snowbros/atlas     # provides `sb` and `snowbros`
brew install snowbros-labs/tap/snowbros-atlas
cargo install snowbros-atlas --locked

No global install? The extension will use npx snowbros automatically (slower on first run while npx fetches the package). You can also point atlas.path at a binary directly.

Commands

Open the Command Palette (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+P) and type Atlas:

Command	Description
Atlas: Analyze Workspace	Force a full re-analysis and refresh all diagnostics.
Atlas: Restart Language Server	Restart `sb lsp`.
Atlas: Explain Rule	Show a rule's detection logic and fix guidance (seeded from the diagnostic under your cursor).
Atlas: Open Report	Generate and open a report in your configured format (HTML by default).
Atlas: Show Health Score	Compute the project health score and category breakdown.
Atlas: Clear Cache	Delete `.snowbros/cache.json` and optionally re-analyze.

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`atlas.enable`	`true`	Enable the extension and language server.
`atlas.path`	`""`	Absolute path to `sb`/`snowbros`. Empty = auto-detect, then `npx`.
`atlas.autoAnalyze`	`true`	Start the server automatically and analyze on open/save. When off, analysis runs only via Atlas: Analyze Workspace.
`atlas.useCache`	`true`	Use the incremental cache for report/health commands.
`atlas.logLevel`	`info`	Output-channel and server (`RUST_LOG`) verbosity.
`atlas.format`	`html`	Report format for Atlas: Open Report (`html`/`json`/`markdown`/`sarif`).
`atlas.enableStatusBar`	`true`	Show the Atlas status bar item.

How it works

VS Code  ──stdio──▶  sb lsp  (Rust language server, the source of truth)
   ▲                    │
   └── native diagnostics, health, reports

The extension uses vscode-languageclient to spawn sb lsp over stdio. The server analyzes the whole project through the Atlas engine (cache-accelerated) on startup, open, and save, and publishes diagnostics per file. Report, health, and explain commands shell out to the same CLI so there is never a second implementation to drift.

Troubleshooting

"Could not launch …" — install the binary (see Requirements) or set atlas.path. Check the Snowbros Atlas output channel for details.
No diagnostics — confirm atlas.enable and atlas.autoAnalyze are on, and that the folder contains JS/TS files. Run Atlas: Analyze Workspace to force a pass.
Slow first run — the npx fallback downloads the package once; a global install avoids this.

Contributing & license

Part of the Snowbros Atlas project. See DEVELOPMENT.md to build and test the extension. Licensed under MIT OR Apache-2.0.