SwitchCode

Chat with the Switchboard inference exchange right inside your editor, with image and OCR support, live streaming, and rich Markdown, using your personal API key and paying per request in $SWCH.

Switchboard is an inference exchange: instead of you picking a model, an auction routes every prompt to the cheapest reliable offer for its difficulty tier. This extension speaks the exchange's OpenAI-compatible chat API, streams tokens as they arrive, and shows a per-request receipt (routed model, savings vs GPT-4o, $SWCH charged). You never choose a model; the auction does it for you.

Features

• Sidebar chat. A SwitchCode icon in the Activity Bar opens a dedicated chat panel. First use asks for your API key, then gives you a scrollable, streaming, multi-turn conversation. Header buttons for New Chat and Sign Out.
• Images and OCR (vision). Attach a screenshot or photo (the attach button, paste from the clipboard, or drag and drop onto the panel) and ask about it. The exchange routes image prompts to a vision-capable model automatically. A one-tap OCR button extracts the text from an attached image.
• Rich Markdown. Answers render with headings, lists, links, inline code, and fenced code blocks with a Copy button (horizontally scrollable). Built with DOM text nodes only, so model output can never inject markup.
• @switchboard chat participant. Ask in the native VS Code Chat view; prior turns are included as context and responses stream in as Markdown.
• Ask about selection. Select code, run Switchboard: Ask about selection, type a question; the answer streams into an Output channel.
• Secure key storage. Your API key lives in VS Code SecretStorage, never in settings or plaintext. A 401 shows an inline Reconnect; it never silently wipes your key or drops your conversation.

Install

• VS Code Marketplace. Search SwitchCode in the Extensions view.
• Open VSX (VS Codium / Cursor / Windsurf). Search SwitchCode.
• Sideload a .vsix: code --install-extension switchcode-0.1.2.vsix, or Extensions view, then Install from VSIX.

Get an API key

Switchboard uses Solana wallet sign-in:

1. Open the console at https://switchesboard.com.
2. Connect a wallet (Phantom / Solflare).
3. Click SIGN IN and sign the one-time challenge message.
4. Your key is minted and shown once. It starts with sk-swch-. Copy it.
5. In VS Code, paste it into the chat panel's Connect field (or run Switchboard: Set API key).

You pay per request in $SWCH. Top up with the + DEPOSIT button on the console (an on-chain transfer to the credits vault). If you run low, the error says exactly how much to deposit and the panel shows a Deposit $SWCH button.

Usage

Sidebar chat

Click the SwitchCode icon in the Activity Bar to open the Chat panel.

• First run shows a key gate: paste your sk-swch-... key and click Connect (or Get a key to open the console).
• Type and press Enter to send (Shift+Enter for a newline). Answers stream live; Stop cancels an in-flight reply.
• Attach an image: click the attach button, paste an image, or drag and drop it onto the panel. Attached images show as removable thumbnails. Hit OCR to pull the text out of them.
• Header buttons: New Chat clears the thread; Sign Out removes the key and returns to the gate.

@switchboard chat participant

@switchboard explain what a Solana PDA is and when to use one

The participant is sticky, so follow-ups stay with @switchboard.

Ask about selection

Select some code, run Switchboard: Ask about selection from the Command Palette, then type your question. The answer streams into the Switchboard Output channel.

Commands

Configuration

The API routes by an auto-classified difficulty tier, so the extension does not send a model field; the exchange ignores it and picks the winner.

Privacy

• Your prompts, selected code, and attached images are sent only to the configured switchboard.baseUrl (the Switchboard exchange), as a normal HTTPS request authenticated by your API key.
• The API key is stored in VS Code SecretStorage and sent only as a Bearer token to that endpoint. It is never logged or written to settings.
• No telemetry is collected by this extension.

License

MIT. The full license text ships in the LICENSE file inside the extension package.