Stata Workbench
A VS Code / Cursor extension that allows Stata code to be run directly from the editor. It connects directly to the mcp-stata MCP server over stdio.
Built by Thomas Monk, London School of Economics.
Installation
Preferred: install from the marketplace listings by searching for Stata Workbench in the Extensions view.
Offline/VSIX fallback:
- Download the latest extension .vsix from the releases page.
- In your VS Code/Cursor/Antigravity/Windsurf IDE, open the command palette (
Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P on Mac) and select Extensions: Install from VSIX....
- Select the downloaded .vsix file and install.
Requirements
- Stata 17+
- uv/uvx on PATH (to run the published mcp-stata tool). If missing, the extension bootstraps uv locally into its storage; otherwise it surfaces a quick action to copy the install command or open the uv install docs.
Features & Commands
- Syntax highlighting for Stata, Dyndoc Markdown, and Dyndoc LaTeX.
- Run Selection/Current Line (
stata-workbench.runSelection) → MCP tool run_command with normalized output + graphs.
- Run Current File (
stata-workbench.runFile) → MCP tool run_do_file for .do scripts.
- Interactive panel (
stata-workbench.showInteractive): rerun snippets inline with the latest stdout/stderr + graph artifacts.
- Graph viewer (
stata-workbench.showGraphs): list via list_graphs, fetch via export_graph, render inline previews.
- Test MCP Server (
stata-workbench.testMcpServer) for quick smoke checks.
- Install MCP CLI helper (
stata-workbench.installMcpCli): bootstraps uv locally when it is missing.
- Status bar + cancel (
stata-workbench.cancelRequest): live request states with one-click cancellation routed through the MCP client.
- Auto-manage MCP configs: writes
.vscode/mcp.json and .cursor/mcp.json so agents reuse the same uvx --from mcp-stata wiring.
- Run results surface in the Run panel +
Stata MCP output channel for durable logs.
Settings (contributes)
stataMcp.requestTimeoutMs (default 45000): timeout for MCP requests.stataMcp.autoRevealOutput (default true): automatically show the output channel after runs.
Agent MCP configs (optional)
When uv is available, the extension writes .vscode/mcp.json + .cursor/mcp.json with the correct mcp_stata wiring. If you want to manage the files yourself (or copy them into another repo) use the snippets below.
VS Code agents (.vscode/mcp.json):
{
"servers": {
"mcp_stata": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["--from", "mcp-stata", "mcp-stata"]
}
}
}
Cursor agents (.cursor/mcp.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"mcp_stata": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["--from", "mcp-stata", "mcp-stata"]
}
}
}
Troubleshooting
- Status bar says “CLI missing”: install uv (includes uvx) with
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh.
- Requests time out: raise
stataMcp.requestTimeoutMs.
- Unexpected MCP errors: open the output channel for a structured error message.
- Cancel a stuck run: run
Stata: Cancel Current Request from the command palette.
Packaging
- Build bundle:
npm run bundle (runs esbuild in production mode).
- Build VSIX:
npm install && npm run package (bundles then invokes vsce).
- Publish to VS Code Marketplace:
VSCE_PAT=<token> npm run package && npx vsce publish (or use your own flow).
- Publish to Open VSX:
OVSX_TOKEN=<token> npm run publish:ovsx (see Open VSX publishing guide).
Uninstall cleanup (optional)
If you added agent configs and want to remove them:
.vscode/mcp.json → delete servers.mcp_stata.cursor/mcp.json → delete mcpServers.mcp_stata
Development
- Install deps:
npm install
- Bundle once for local debugging:
npm run compile
- Watch mode while iterating:
npm run watch
- Tests:
npm test
- Package:
npm run package (or npm run package:dist for output to the dist directory)
Acknowledgments
Portions of this file are derived from stata-mcp (MIT License), language-stata by Kyle Barron (MIT License), and vscode-stata by Kyle Butts (MIT License). See license_extras for the full license texts. Do check their projects out!
