Overture

Run and manage multiple app processes from a single VS Code sidebar panel — with per-app terminals, live logs, and automatic project detection.

Features

• Sidebar panel — view all your apps at a glance with live status indicators
• Per-app terminals — each process runs in its own VS Code terminal tab with full color and interactivity
• Log files — output is simultaneously written to .overture/logs/<app>-YYYY-MM-DD.log (ANSI stripped, timestamped)
• Auto-scan — detects all Node.js projects in your workspace and lists their npm scripts
• Enable / Disable — toggle apps on or off without removing them from config
• Log retention — old logs are auto-cleaned after a configurable number of days (default: 7)
• Git branch display — each app shows its current git branch in the sidebar (⎇ main) and hover tooltip
• Git change indicators — apps with uncommitted work are colored like the file explorer (modified / untracked / conflicting) with a badge counting pending changes
• Namespaces — group apps into namespaces and scope the sidebar, Start All, and Stop All to one of them
• First-run welcome panel — guided empty-state panel with inline action buttons when no apps are configured yet
• File explorer in the sidebar — expand an app's Path node to browse its folder tree and open files directly, no need to switch to the main Explorer view
• Quick links to .env* and package.json — surfaced right under the app, alongside Path and Logs
• Log file browser — expand an app's Logs node to see every retained dated log file and open it in one click
• Hide/show disabled apps — declutter the sidebar with a title-bar toggle or the overture.showDisabledApps setting
• Settings panel — a form-based UI (Overture: Open Settings) for editing retention days, apps, and profiles without hand-editing JSON
• VS Code for the Web — full functionality in GitHub Codespaces and github.dev; browses your configured apps and profiles read-only in pure vscode.dev/github.dev with no connected backend, since spawning processes has no equivalent there

Installation

Install from the .vsix file:

code --install-extension overture-1.3.0.vsix

Or via VS Code: Extensions → ··· → Install from VSIX

Quick Start

1. Open your project folder in VS Code
2. Click the Overture icon in the activity bar (left sidebar)
3. Click Create Config — this immediately opens a scanner to detect your projects
4. Select the scripts you want to run and confirm
5. Click Start All (▶▶ icon) to launch everything

Config File

The extension reads .overture/config.json from your workspace root.

{
  "retentionDays": 7,
  "apps": [
    {
      "name": "frontend",
      "path": "./packages/frontend",
      "command": "npm run dev",
      "enabled": true
    },
    {
      "name": "backend",
      "path": "./packages/backend",
      "command": "npm run dev",
      "enabled": true
    },
    {
      "name": "worker",
      "path": "./packages/worker",
      "command": "npm run dev",
      "enabled": false
    }
  ]
}

The file is watched — changes take effect immediately without reloading VS Code.

Sidebar Panel

Click the Overture icon in the activity bar to open the panel.

Status indicators

Toolbar buttons

Everything else lives under the … overflow menu: Refresh, Toggle Disabled Apps, Create Profile, Scan for Projects, Open Settings, and Open config.json.

Per-app inline buttons

Right-click any app or use the inline icons:

Namespaces

Give apps a namespace (in the settings panel or config.json) to group them — for example media, billing, infra. Apps without one belong to default.

• Once more than one namespace is in use, the APPS section nests apps under a row per namespace.
• Overture: Filter by Namespace (⚱ in the title bar) narrows the sidebar to one namespace. Start All, Stop All, and Restart All then apply only to it, and the section header shows the active filter (media · 2/3 running).
• The filter is remembered per workspace.

Profiles are independent of namespaces — a profile can contain apps from any of them.

Git change indicators

Apps whose repository has uncommitted work are colored using the same theme colors as the file explorer, with a badge counting the pending changes:

Counts refresh when you save a file in the app's folder, when config reloads, and when an app starts. Changes made outside the editor (a commit or checkout in a terminal) are picked up on the next refresh. This honors the explorer.decorations.colors and explorer.decorations.badges settings.

.env files, package.json, Path, and Logs

Each app expands directly into:

• Any .env* files and package.json in the app's folder, one click away
• Path — a live file explorer rooted at the app's folder; expand into subfolders and click any file to open it. Right-click Path, a folder, or a file for Reveal in File Explorer.
• Logs — every retained dated log file for that app (click one to open it in the editor)

Settings Panel

Click the gear icon in the title bar, or run Overture: Open Settings, to open a form-based settings UI:

• General — log retention (days)
• Apps — add, edit, or remove apps (name, path, command, namespace, enabled, archived) in a table
• Profiles — add, edit, or remove profiles, toggle favorite, and check off member apps

Click Save to write changes back to .overture/config.json, or Open config.json to edit the raw file directly. If the file changes on disk while you have unsaved edits open, the panel prompts you to reload rather than silently overwriting your changes.

Scanning for Projects

Click the magnifying glass icon or run Overture: Scan Workspace for Node.js Projects from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P).

The scanner:

• Finds every package.json in the workspace (skips node_modules, dist, build, out)
• Lists all scripts grouped by project
• Pre-selects dev, start, serve, preview, develop scripts
• Marks already-configured scripts so you don't add duplicates

After confirming your selection, scripts are appended to .overture/config.json. You can scan multiple times safely.

Terminals & Logs

Each app runs in its own VS Code terminal tab named ▶ <appname>.

• Full ANSI color support — npm spinners, colors, etc. render correctly
• The terminal is interactive — you can type into it (stdin is forwarded)
• Closing the terminal tab stops the process

Log files are written to .overture/logs/:

• One file per app per day: frontend-2026-04-16.log
• ANSI codes stripped, each line prefixed with [HH:MM:SS]
• Files older than retentionDays are deleted automatically on next start

Commands (Command Palette)

All commands are available via Ctrl+Shift+P → type Overture:

Status Bar

The bottom-left status bar shows the running count:

• ▶ Overture — nothing running, click to start all
• ● 2/3 running — 2 of 3 enabled apps are running, click to start remaining

Contributors