Stata Workbench

Stata Workbench is unified agentic toolkit for Stata development. The toolkit gives AI agents native control over Stata - run commands, inspect variables, export graphs, and build more quickly and reliably than native Stata alone. Built as a VS Code extension (Cursor, Windsurf, Antigravity), so your agent works inside your editor. Powered by mcp-stata. Featured in News.

Built by Thomas Monk, London School of Economics.

Why use this?

Run Stata without leaving your editor. Execute code, see output, and view graphs - all within VS Code. No switching windows, no copying and pasting between your do-file editor and an AI chat.

For solo work: A modern IDE for Stata—autocomplete, syntax highlighting, multiple cursors, and an AI assistant that can run commands, inspect your variables, and debug errors directly.

For collaboration: Co-authors work in the same environment they use for other code. Shared editor settings, consistent formatting, and AI assistants that understand your project structure.

For teaching: Students learn Stata with the same tools they'll use for everything else - inline errors, an integrated terminal, and an AI that can explain what went wrong.

Installation

Install directly from the marketplace listings by searching for Stata Workbench in the Extensions view.

• VS Code Marketplace: tmonk.stata-workbench
• Open VSX: tmonk/stata-workbench

Offline fallback:

1. Download the latest extension .vsix from the releases page.
2. 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....
3. Select the downloaded .vsix file and install.

Quickstart

1. Install the Stata Workbench extension.

2. Open a .do file in VS Code (or a compatible editor).

3. Run Stata: Run Selection/Line (press the play button on the top right). The Stata Terminal panel opens automatically the first time you run a command. You can interact with this as you would a standard Stata terminal.

4. Run:

   sysuse auto, clear
   summarize
   

   Output appears as output cards in the panel.

5. Run:

   scatter price mpg
   

   A Graph artifact card appears - click it to open the generated graph.

6. Open the Data Browser panel to view your data live.

Stata Terminal panel showing output cards and a graph artifact.

Data Browser allows for a live view of your data, with filtering and sorting.

Requirements

• Stata 17+ on macOS, Windows, or Linux.
• mcp-stata: The extension requires the mcp-stata toolkit. If it is not found, you will be prompted to run the installation script.

Features

Stata Workbench is a unified agentic toolkit for Stata development, providing a rich IDE experience with deep AI integration:

• Integrated Terminal: Rich UI for tracking Stata output with clickable links, integrated search, and persistent history. Provides a Log tab for viewing the full session history with efficient tail-loading.
• Data Browser (stata-workbench.viewData): High-performance view of millions of rows (~20x faster with Apache Arrow) with live filtering and sorting.
• Advanced MCP Tools: Full suite of tools for AI agents (Run, Inspect, Export Graphs, State Diff).
• Run Selection/Current Line (stata-workbench.runSelection): Executes the selected code or current line via MCP tool run_command with normalized output and graphs.
• Run Current File (stata-workbench.runFile): Runs the entire .do file via MCP tool run_do_file.
• Environment Detection (stata_manage_session action="detect"): Returns Stata version, flavor, and OS metadata.
• Code Linting (stata_inspect_data action="lint"): Static analysis of .do and .ado files to identify style violations and potential errors.
• Modern Stata Skill: A specialized knowledge base for agents to use frames, gtools, and other modern Stata features instead of legacy anti-patterns.
• Setup Toolkit (scripts/setup_toolkit.py): Automated registration for Claude Desktop, Codex, VS Code, and Cursor in one command.
• Auto-manage MCP configs: Synchronizes your host MCP settings (mcp.json) across your favorite AI editors.
• Status Bar + Cancel (stata-workbench.cancelRequest): Live request states with one-click cancellation.
• Test MCP Server (stata-workbench.testMcpServer): Quick smoke checks to verify your Stata connection.
• Syntax Highlighting: Full support for .do, .ado, .mata, Dyndoc Markdown, and Dyndoc LaTeX.
• Install MCP CLI helper (stata-workbench.installMcpCli): Bootstraps the mcp-stata toolkit locally when it is missing from the environment.
• Durable logs: All run results are logged to the Stata Workbench output channel for persistent reference.

For a detailed breakdown of all capabilities, see FEATURES.md.

Settings

• stataMcp.requestTimeoutMs (default 100000): timeout for MCP requests.
• stataMcp.autoRevealOutput (default false): automatically show the output channel after runs.
• stataMcp.autoConfigureMcp (default true): automatically add/update the mcp-stata server entry in your host MCP config (mcp.json).
• stataMcp.configureClaudeCode (default false): register mcp-stata via claude mcp add-json at user scope. Ensures both Claude Code CLI and VS Code extension see the server. Requires claude on PATH.
• stataMcp.configureCodex (default false): also configure Codex CLI and VS Code extension MCP settings.
• stataMcp.codexConfigPath (default ~/.codex/config.toml): path to Codex MCP config. Supports ~ and ${workspaceFolder}.
• stataMcp.runFileWorkingDirectory (default empty): working directory when running .do files. Supports an absolute path, ~, ${workspaceFolder} or ${fileDir}; empty uses the .do file's folder.
• stataMcp.setupTimeoutSeconds (default 60): timeout (seconds) for Stata initialization.
• stataMcp.noReloadOnClear (default false): disable reloading startup/profile do files after clear all/program drop.
• stataMcp.maxOutputLines (default 0): limit Stata output to N lines (0 = unlimited). Useful for reducing token usage with AI agents.
• stataMcp.runFileBehavior (default runDirtyFile): choose whether 'Run File' should run the current editor content (including unsaved changes) or the version saved on disk.
• stataMcp.defaultVariableLimit (default 100): default number of variables to select when opening the Data Browser (0 = all). Useful for huge datasets.

AI Assistant Integration

Automatic Configuration

MCP configuration is synced on extension load and when you toggle the relevant settings. When a setting is enabled, the extension adds or updates the mcp-stata entry in that config. When you turn the setting off, the extension removes the mcp_stata entry cleanly.

The extension detects your editor and writes to the appropriate config file(s).

• User-level mcp.json with Stata MCP server entry
• The extension delegates initial server configuration to the mcp-stata installer.
• Works for: VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Antigravity
• Optional: Claude Code CLI and extension when stataMcp.configureClaudeCode is enabled
• Optional: Codex CLI and extension when stataMcp.configureCodex is enabled

Config file locations:

If you want to manage the file yourself, here is the content to add. User-level mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "mcp_stata": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--refresh", "--refresh-package", "mcp-stata", "--from", "mcp-stata@latest", "mcp-stata"]
    }
  }
}

Troubleshooting

• Claude Code extension doesn't see MCPs: We use claude mcp add-json so both CLI and extension share the same config. Ensure claude is on PATH and stataMcp.configureClaudeCode is enabled. Restart the Claude Code panel after changes.
• Icons not visible in editor title bar: If the play, run, and graph icons don't appear when you open a .do file, click the ... menu in the editor title bar and enable the Stata Workbench icons to make them visible.
• Status bar says "CLI missing": Install mcp-stata manually with curl -LsSf https://mcp-stata-install.tdmonk.com/install.sh | bash (macOS/Linux) or irm irm https://mcp-stata-install.tdmonk.com/install.ps1 | iex | iex (Windows).
• 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.

Uninstall cleanup (optional)

Automatic removal: Turn off stataMcp.autoConfigureMcp, stataMcp.configureClaudeCode, or stataMcp.configureCodex in settings; the extension removes the mcp_stata entry immediately.

Manual removal: Edit the config file and delete the relevant entry:

• VS Code format → delete servers.mcp_stata
• Cursor format → delete mcpServers.mcp_stata
• Claude Code → run claude mcp remove mcp_stata, or turn off stataMcp.configureClaudeCode to auto-remove
• Codex → delete [mcp_servers.mcp_stata] and [mcp_servers.mcp_stata.env] from ~/.codex/config.toml

Telemetry

This extension uses Sentry to collect error and performance data to improve reliability. No personal data is collected. You can disable telemetry by setting "stata-workbench.telemetry.enabled": false in your VS Code settings.

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!