Review Relay

Review Relay is a shared, live review-comment channel between a human in VS Code and local AI tooling. VS Code remains the diff/editor UI and language-aware navigation surface; the extension owns one comment store and exposes it both through VS Code's native Comments UI and a loopback-only HTTP API.

The Review Relay Activity Bar contains both the overall review controls and a dedicated comment tree grouped by file and source location. Selecting a location or comment navigates to it without relying on VS Code's built-in Comments view. Copy as Markdown combines the overall text, inline source snippets, and review comments for agents that cannot reach the local API. Include AI-generated comments controls whether agent-authored comments are included in that export. The same view can copy the live Agent Instructions for agents that can use the bundled CLI.

Try it

npm install
npm run build

Open this directory in VS Code and run the Extension launch configuration, or press F5. Select code and run Review Relay: Add Comment. The status bar shows that the API is running; click it to copy the endpoint.

To connect an AI agent, run Review Relay: Copy Agent Instructions from the Command Palette and paste the copied Markdown into the agent chat. It contains the live endpoint, open workspace URIs, interface contract, safety rules, and ready-to-run CLI examples.

The extension bundles a dependency-free Go CLI for the current OS and architecture. Agent instructions include its absolute path and workspace-specific commands, so agents do not need Node.js, curl, or jq. Run npm run build:cli:all before packaging a cross-platform VSIX.

Each VS Code window binds an available random loopback port and registers its endpoint against its workspace folders. The CLI discovers the right window from --workspace PATH, or from its current directory when that option is omitted. This allows multiple projects to use Review Relay concurrently without coordinating port numbers. --endpoint URL remains available as an explicit override.

# Read all comments
review-relay --workspace /absolute/path/to/project comments list

# Add an AI comment (line numbers are zero-based; uri is a VS Code URI)
review-relay --workspace /absolute/path/to/project comments add \
  --uri file:///absolute/path/src/app.ts --line 12 \
  --body 'Should this error be propagated?' --author Codex

# Open a comment in VS Code
review-relay --workspace /absolute/path/to/project navigate --comment COMMENT_ID

# Filter, remove one, or clear all
review-relay comments list --uri file:///absolute/path/src/app.ts
review-relay comments remove COMMENT_ID
review-relay comments clear

Comments persist in VS Code workspace storage and updates from either side immediately redraw both the Review Relay comment tree and native comment threads. Comment-list responses include the overall review, and deletion responses report how many inline comments remain. The server binds only to 127.0.0.1, rejects browser-origin requests, requires JSON for writes, and caps request bodies at 64 KiB.

API

• GET /health
• GET /v1/comments[?uri=...] returns { overall, comments }
• POST /v1/comments with { uri, line, endLine?, body, author?, source? }
• POST /v1/navigate with { commentId } or { uri, line, endLine? }
• DELETE /v1/comments/:id
• DELETE /v1/comments

This MVP deliberately uses a small HTTP resource API rather than coupling agents to VS Code commands. A future CLI or MCP server can be a thin client over the same API without moving comment ownership out of the extension.