Stata Workbench

A VS Code compatible extension (Cursor, Windsurf, Antigravity etc.) that allows Stata code to be run directly from the editor. Enables AI agents to directly interact with Stata. Powered by mcp-stata.

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.
• uv/uvx: The extension includes bundled uv binaries for standard platforms. It will automatically use the system uv if available on your PATH, or fall back to the bundled version. No manual installation is required for most users.

Features & Commands

• Syntax highlighting for Stata, Dyndoc Markdown, and Dyndoc LaTeX.
• Run Selection/Current Line (stata-workbench.runSelection) → Executes the selected code or current line via MCP tool run_command with normalized output + graphs. Results appear in the terminal panel.
• Run Current File (stata-workbench.runFile) → Runs the entire .do file via MCP tool run_do_file. Results appear in the terminal panel.
• Terminal panel: Automatically opens when running code, displaying results with stdout/stderr, execution time, return codes, and graph artifacts. You can continue running additional Stata commands directly in the panel. Supports quick history navigation (PageUp/PageDown), Tab-based variable name completion, and clickable links to the full SMCL log. Matches Stata's behavior by providing a Log tab for viewing the full session history with efficient tail-loading for large files. Includes an integrated search within each card (click the search icon in the card header) with bidirectional highlights, match counts, and keyboard shortcuts (Enter/Shift+Enter for navigation, Esc to close).
• Data Browser (stata-workbench.viewData): Live view of your data with filtering and sorting. Optimized for high performance (~20x faster with Apache Arrow support) and includes a custom variable selector for large datasets.
• 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 the user-level mcp.json in your editor's user data so AI agents reuse the same uvx --refresh --refresh-package mcp-stata --from mcp-stata@latest mcp-stata wiring.
• Durable logs: All run results are logged to the Stata Workbench output channel for reference.

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): also configure Claude Code CLI MCP settings when installed.
• stataMcp.claudeCodeConfigScope (default user): write Claude Code CLI config to ~/.claude.json (user) or project .mcp.json (project).
• 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

Stata Workbench automatically writes your MCP configuration when you first run it. The extension detects your editor and creates the appropriate config file.

• User-level mcp.json with Stata MCP server entry
• Uses uvx --refresh --refresh-package mcp-stata --from mcp-stata@latest mcp-stata for auto-updates
• Works for: VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Antigravity
• Optional: Claude Code CLI when stataMcp.configureClaudeCode 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

• 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": This usually only occurs on unsupported platforms where a bundled binary is not provided. Install uv manually with curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh (macOS/Linux) or powershell -NoLogo -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iwr https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 -useb | 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)

If you added agent configs and want to remove them, edit your user-level mcp.json (same path as above) and delete the relevant entry:

• VS Code format → delete servers.mcp_stata
• Cursor format → delete mcpServers.mcp_stata

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!