Path of Exile 2 Filter
Write, validate, and preview Path of Exile 2 item filters without leaving your editor — IntelliSense, live error checking, quick fixes, and an in-editor visual preview.
Powered by a dedicated language server, this extension treats your filter like real code: it understands the syntax, cross-checks your rules against actual Path of Exile 2 game data, and surfaces mistakes as you type.
I personally used this extension when PoE2 launched and FilterBlade.xyz was not yet released. I now use FilterBlade for my own filters, so if you hit any issue with the extension, please report it :)
Features at a glance
Write filters faster
Catch mistakes
See your filter
Test & format
Write filters faster
IntelliSense & completions
Context-aware completions as you type:
- Block, condition, and action keywords (
Show, BaseType, SetTextColor, ...)
- Value suggestions where they make sense —
Rarity (Normal/Magic/Rare/Unique), boolean conditions (True/False), MinimapIcon colors and shapes, PlayEffect keywords
Class and BaseType names completed from actual game data (automatically quoted)- File-path completion for
Import and CustomAlertSound
Signature help
Parameter hints appear as you fill in an action, so you know what each value means.
Hover documentation
Hover a BaseType or Class value to see the matching items from game data.
Clickable Import & sound links
Import and CustomAlertSound paths render as links — Ctrl/Cmd+Click to jump straight to the referenced file.
Catch mistakes
Error detection & quick fixes
Common mistakes are flagged inline with one-click fixes:
- Syntax error highlighting
- Command validation with suggestions for misspelled commands
- Parameter validation (color values, keywords, numeric ranges)
- Quick Fixes for typos and other common issues
Class & BaseType validation
Class and BaseType values are validated against actual PoE2 game items (supporting singular/plural forms), with suggestions when a value is mistyped.
DropLevel cross-check
DropLevel conditions are checked against the real drop levels of the BaseTypes in the same block, catching rules that can never match. For example, DropLevel < 35 on a base that only drops at level 35 is flagged: "DropLevel < 35 never matches the block's BaseType: actual drop level 35".
Duplicate detection
Duplicate values in list conditions (e.g. Class "Quarterstaves" "Quarterstaves" ), as well as duplicate conditions and actions within a block, are flagged — the redundant ones are dimmed as dead code.
Impossible Class/BaseType combinations
When a block's Class and BaseType conditions can never both match (e.g. Class == "Currency" with BaseType == "Sapphire Ring"), the impossible value is flagged with quick fixes to add the correct class or remove the offending BaseType.
Rule conflict detection
Identifies rules that may never trigger because an earlier rule already catches their items:
- Warns about rules completely shadowed by earlier rules
- Shows which specific conditions from the earlier rule would catch the items
- Reports the conflict from both ends, with the conflicting line number in the message
- Provides navigation (and a peek view) to jump between the conflicting rules
- Handles complex condition combinations including numeric comparisons
Dead-code highlighting
Code that can never take effect is faded using the editor's "unnecessary" styling — unreachable rules, impossible Class/BaseType values, duplicate conditions/actions, and statements after a Continue. A "Remove dead code" quick fix is offered where applicable.
See your filter
Syntax highlighting
Proper syntax highlighting for PoE2 filter files to improve readability and help catch syntax errors at a glance.
Rarity colors
Rarity values are drawn in their in-game rarity colors (Normal, Magic, Rare, Unique) so rules read the way items look in-game.
Commented-out filter code (disabled Show/Hide blocks, conditions, and actions) is styled distinctly from regular prose comments, so it's easy to tell leftover code from notes. A "Uncomment this line" / "Uncomment block" quick fix makes it easy to re-enable.
Color previews & picker
- Live color previews for
SetTextColor, SetBorderColor, and SetBackgroundColor
- Integrated color picker for easy RGB/RGBA editing
Minimap icon previews
Visual preview of minimap icons directly in the editor:
- Colored shape indicators for all
MinimapIcon combinations
- Supports all 12 shapes (Circle, Diamond, Hexagon, etc.)
- Displays in 11 different colors (Red, Green, Blue, etc.)
Live filter preview
Interactive preview of your filter rules showing how items will appear in-game.
To open the Live Filter Preview:
- Click the filter preview icon in the editor title bar
- Right-click the editor and select "Show Filter Preview"
- Use the command palette (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+P) and search for "Show Filter Preview"
- Right-click the file in the explorer and select "Show Filter Preview"
Features:
- Real-time updates as you edit your filter
- Visual representation of all styling rules:
- Text colors and font sizes
- Border and background colors
- Beam effects with proper coloring
- Interactive features:
- Zoom and pan to explore your filter
- Click items to jump to their corresponding rules
- Hover tooltips showing item details
- Sample items to test your filter
- Clearly indicates hidden items
- Supports
Continue rules showing combined effects
Layout
The preview displays items in a spiral pattern, starting from the center. The first rule's items appear in the center and subsequent rules spiral outward clockwise. This layout helps visualize rule priority — central items are caught by earlier rules, outer items by later rules. Items affected by Continue rules show combined styling from multiple rules.
Font setup (optional)
For the most authentic Path of Exile look, install the Fontin font family:
- Visit exljbris Font Foundry
- Scroll to the "Fontin" section
- Download and install the font for your operating system:
- Mac users: Download the Type1 version
- Windows users: Download the TTF version
- For OpenType support: Download the OpenType version
If Fontin is not installed, the preview falls back to Arial, Helvetica Neue, or your system's default sans-serif font.
Preview showing NeverSink's Indepth Loot Filter v0.2.1 with Fontin SmallCaps font
Document outline
Navigate through your filter with ease:
- Quick navigation through filter sections and rules
- Hierarchical view of your filter structure
- Easy folding/unfolding of filter sections
BaseType match indicators
Visual feedback for BaseType matches:
- Shows the number of potential matches before items that have multiple matches
- Hover over BaseType values to see the list of matching items
- Only shown when there are multiple potential matches, to reduce noise
- Helps identify broad BaseType patterns that might catch unintended items
Automatically format your filter files to keep them consistent and readable.
Formatting rules include:
- Consistent indentation for conditions and actions
- Empty lines between block statements (Show/Hide)
- Proper comment formatting:
- One space after
# for comments
- Preserved special comment sections (like dividers)
- Proper inline comment alignment
- Trimmed whitespace
Sound playback
Test your filter's sound alerts directly in the editor (implemented by @RobertFrydenlund):
- CodeLens "Play sound" button next to
PlayAlertSound commands
- Supports both default and custom sound files:
- Built-in Path of Exile alert sounds (AlertSound1-16)
- Named sounds (ShAlchemy, ShBlessed, etc.)
- Custom sound files via
CustomAlertSound
- Cross-platform compatibility:
- Windows: PowerShell MediaPlayer
- macOS: afplay
- Linux: multiple players (paplay, aplay, mpg123, etc.)
- Volume control support (where available)
- Intelligent player selection based on system capabilities
Online & FilterBlade filters
Filters generated by tools like FilterBlade are often saved without a .filter extension. The extension auto-detects these "Online Item Filter" files (and any file starting with a Show/Hide/Minimal block) so highlighting and language features still work.
Getting started
- Install Path of Exile 2 Filter from the VS Code Marketplace or Open VSX (for VSCodium, Cursor, Windsurf, and other VS Code–compatible editors).
- Open any
.filter file — language features activate automatically.
- Open the visual preview with the editor title-bar icon or the "Show Filter Preview" command.
Settings
The rarity and commented-code colors ship with sensible defaults via editor.semanticTokenColorCustomizations. To customize them, override these semantic token IDs in your settings:
"editor.semanticTokenColorCustomizations": {
"rules": {
"commentedCode": { "foreground": "#808a99", "italic": true },
"rarityNormal": "#c8c8c8",
"rarityMagic": "#8888ff",
"rarityRare": "#ffff77",
"rarityUnique": "#af6025"
}
}
Known Issues
- The bundled language definition still contains some PoE1 syntax that is being updated to fully reflect PoE2.
Found a bug? Please open an issue.
Roadmap
- Additional condition types (e.g. BaseArmour/BaseEnergyShield/BaseEvasion)
- More parameter validations and diagnostics (nested/empty block detection)
- Command snippets and richer hover documentation
- Support for additional PoE2-specific filter syntax as it gets documented
Release Notes
See CHANGELOG.md for detailed release notes.
Contributing
Feel free to open issues or PRs on the GitHub repository.
Development
Automated Releases
This project uses release-please for automated semantic versioning and release management.
How it works
Conventional Commits — all commits follow the Conventional Commits specification:
feat: for new features (minor version bump)fix: for bug fixes (patch version bump)feat!: or fix!: for breaking changes (major version bump)docs:, style:, refactor:, perf:, test:, chore: for other changes
Automated release process:
- When commits land on
main, release-please analyzes the commit messages
- It determines the next version based on semantic versioning
- It opens a release PR with the updated version and changelog
- Merging that PR creates a GitHub release
- The release triggers automatic publishing to the VS Code Marketplace and Open VSX
Commit message examples:
feat: add new filter validation feature
fix: resolve color preview display issue
feat!: breaking change in filter syntax
docs: update README with new features
Building and Packaging
pnpm install
pnpm run build
pnpm run package
Run build before package — vsce invokes npm for vscode:prepublish, which is awkward in a pnpm project and triggers noisy npm config warnings. CI and the publish scripts already build first.
pnpm run package runs vsce package --no-dependencies and produces poe2-filter.vsix, which you can install locally via the Extensions view ("Install from VSIX...").
Publishing
Publishing is normally automated via release-please. To publish manually:
VS Code Marketplace — create a Personal Access Token (PAT) at marketplace.visualstudio.com/manage, then authenticate once with pnpm exec vsce login thmsn.
Open VSX — register at open-vsx.org, sign the Publisher Agreement, create an access token at open-vsx.org/user-settings/tokens, and create the thmsn namespace once:
pnpm exec ovsx create-namespace thmsn -p <token>
Build, package, and publish:
pnpm run build
pnpm run package
pnpm run vsce:publish # requires VSCE_PAT
pnpm run ovsx:publish # requires OVSX_PAT
For CI, add an OVSX_PAT repository secret alongside the existing VSCE_PAT. The publish workflows skip Open VSX when that secret is not set.
Credits
This extension was inspired by and builds upon ideas from:
Special thanks to:
Thanks to these projects for paving the way in POE filter development tooling.
License
MIT
