Remote Pulse
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Continuously track your Remote-SSH host's CPU / memory / disk / network / GPU / Docker status — as quiet yet always-at-a-glance as VS Code's native latency indicator — without breaking your coding flow.
Why Remote Pulse
Most similar extensions just move a full dashboard into the status bar: dense, and permanently on display. Remote Pulse takes a different approach:
| Aspect |
Common approach elsewhere |
Remote Pulse |
| Always-on footprint |
CPU|MEM|DISK all shown flat |
Just 1 icon + 1 core number by default; everything else lives in the tooltip |
| Visual tone |
Value-driven coloring at all times |
Neutral by default; only colors up when a threshold is crossed |
| Interaction |
Some require opening a sidebar |
Click to pop a lightweight Webview — no persistent space used, no trace left after closing |
| Resource cost |
Some poll via spawned subprocesses |
Reads /proc directly; zero steady-state subprocess overhead for core metrics |
| Context awareness |
Polls at the same rate whether focused or not |
Automatically throttles when the window loses focus |
Preview
Default: $(pulse) 23%
Alert: $(warning) 92% ← status bar background turns warning/critical color
Hover to expand the tooltip:
Remote host: dev-gpu-01 (192.168.x.x)
─────────────────────
CPU ▁▃▅▇▆▄▂ 23% (8 cores)
Memory ▂▂▃▄▄▃▂ 61% (9.8G / 16G)
Uptime 12d 4h
─────────────────────
Click to view the trend chart
Click the status bar item to open a line chart of the last 30 minutes of CPU/memory history (a Webview that's destroyed on close — nothing stays resident in memory).
Features
- CPU: overall usage and core count (delta-based
/proc/stat calculation, not loadavg)
- Memory: usage percentage and used/total (uses
MemAvailable rather than MemFree, which better reflects what's actually available)
- Disk: per-mount-point usage (virtual filesystems are filtered out automatically; shows the top 3 by usage by default, or specify mount points manually)
- Network: upload/download rate (disabled by default to keep the tooltip uncluttered)
- GPU: VRAM usage, utilization, temperature (requires
nvidia-smi; the module simply stays inactive if it's unavailable)
- Docker: running container count plus per-container CPU/memory usage (requires access to
/var/run/docker.sock; degrades silently without permission)
- Threshold alerts: the status bar changes color when CPU/memory crosses a threshold, with an optional system notification (fires once per crossing into the critical state, so it won't spam you)
- History trend: a tooltip sparkline plus a Webview line chart on click
- Adaptive polling: automatically throttles once the window loses focus, reducing load on the remote machine
Installation
Download the .vsix file from Releases, then in VS Code run:
Extensions: Install from VSIX...
Or install from the command line:
code --install-extension remote-pulse-0.1.0.vsix
Once installed, connect to a Linux remote host over Remote-SSH and the metrics will show up in the status bar (the extension declares extensionKind: workspace, so it automatically runs on the remote extension host — no extra setup required).
Configuration
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
remotePulse.refreshInterval |
2000 |
Refresh interval for high-frequency foreground metrics (CPU/memory), in ms |
remotePulse.backgroundInterval |
15000 |
Throttled refresh interval once the window loses focus, in ms |
remotePulse.heavyMetricInterval |
10000 |
Independent polling interval for low-frequency metrics like GPU/Docker, in ms |
remotePulse.statusBarMetric |
cpu |
Primary metric shown in the status bar: cpu | memory |
remotePulse.warningThreshold |
80 |
Warning threshold (%) |
remotePulse.criticalThreshold |
95 |
Critical threshold (%) |
remotePulse.template |
"$(pulse) ${value}%" |
Status bar display template |
remotePulse.enableGpu |
true |
Whether to detect and show GPU info |
remotePulse.enableDocker |
true |
Whether to detect and show Docker container info |
remotePulse.enableNetwork |
false |
Whether to show network upload/download rate |
remotePulse.enableNotifications |
false |
Whether to show a system notification when the critical threshold is crossed |
remotePulse.diskMountPoints |
[] |
Mount points to monitor; leave empty to auto-select the top 3 by usage |
Commands
Remote Pulse: Show Trend Chart (remotePulse.showTrend, also bound to clicking the status bar item)Remote Pulse: Refresh Now (remotePulse.refresh)
Edge Cases
- Non-Linux remote hosts: CPU/memory automatically fall back to Node.js's
os module (slightly less precise); the network module is hidden entirely since there's no cross-platform equivalent
- First connection: the status bar initially shows a
$(sync~spin) loading state
- Collection failure (permissions / network flakiness): shows
$(circle-slash), with the reason explained in the tooltip — no intrusive error notifications
- GPU/Docker unavailable: probed once at startup; if missing or unauthorized, the module simply stays inactive rather than retrying repeatedly
Development
npm install
npm run build # compile with tsc into out/
npm test # build, then run the unit tests under test/ (node:test)
npm run package # vsce package to produce a .vsix
Open this project in VS Code and press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host for live debugging (locally on macOS/Windows, CPU/memory fall back to the os module path, so you can verify the core interactions even without a remote Linux host).
CI / Release Pipeline
The repository has three workflows configured (.github/workflows/):
| Workflow |
Trigger |
Purpose |
ci.yml |
Every push/PR to main |
npm ci → build → unit tests → vsce package smoke check |
release-please.yml |
Push to main |
Maintains a "Release PR" automatically based on Conventional Commits messages (bumps the package.json version + CHANGELOG.md); merging it automatically tags a version and creates a GitHub Release |
publish.yml |
A GitHub Release is published (release: published) |
Build → test → package the .vsix → attach it to the Release → publish to the VS Code Marketplace (vsce publish) and Open VSX (ovsx publish) |
In short, the full pipeline is: everyday commits follow Conventional Commits (feat: xxx / fix: xxx / chore: xxx, …) → release-please opens a version PR → merging it cuts a GitHub Release automatically → that automatically pushes to both marketplaces.
One-Time Manual Setup (Repository Secrets)
Before automatic publishing to both marketplaces can work, a few things need to be done manually, once:
- VS Code Marketplace: register a publisher at marketplace.visualstudio.com/manage (make sure it matches
"publisher": "tanzz" in package.json, or update that field to your actual publisher id), then generate a PAT in Azure DevOps with Marketplace (Manage) scope.
- Open VSX: sign in at open-vsx.org with an Eclipse account, claim a namespace matching the publisher name (
npx ovsx create-namespace tanzz -p <token>, or do it via the web UI), then generate an access token.
- Add both tokens to the repository Secrets (run this in your own terminal — don't paste tokens into chat):
gh secret set VSCE_PAT --repo tzzs/remote-pulse
gh secret set OVSX_PAT --repo tzzs/remote-pulse
Until both secrets are configured, publish.yml will fail at the Marketplace/Open VSX publish steps (the rest — build, test, package, and uploading the .vsix to the Release — is unaffected). That's expected.
License
MIT
