WayCode

An AI coding agent that lives in your VS Code sidebar — talks to you in your language, works on your whole project, and never changes a file behind your back.

What is WayCode?

WayCode is a VS Code extension that turns a chat panel into a real coding agent. You describe what you want — in English, Hebrew, Arabic, or anything else — and it reads your repository, searches the code, writes and edits files, runs your tests and linter, reads the errors, and fixes them. Every risky step shows you a diff or the exact command and waits for your approval, unless you tell it not to.

It is provider-agnostic: Claude, GPT, a local Ollama model, or your existing Claude Code CLI subscription. And it can split the work between two models — one that's great at your language and one that's great at code.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  You: "תוסיף בדיקות ל-History ותריץ אותן"                    │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  🔍 search_code  /class History/            → 3 matches      │
│  📖 read_file    src/memory/History.ts      → 62 lines       │
│  ✅ create_file  src/test/history.test.ts   → [diff] approve?│
│  🧪 run_tests    npm test                   → 14 pass        │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  WayCode: הוספתי 5 בדיקות ל-History. כל 14 הבדיקות עוברות.   │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Highlights

Quick start

1. Install — from the Marketplace, or build a .vsix locally (see Development).
2. Open the panel — click the WayCode icon in the Activity Bar, or run WayCode: Open Chat.
3. Pick a model — WayCode: Select Model / Provider.
4. Add a key if needed — WayCode: Set API Key (stored in VS Code Secret Storage, never in settings).
5. Ask for something — "add input validation to the login form and run the tests".

How it works

Single-agent mode (default)

One model does everything, in a bounded tool-use loop:

   your message
        │
        ▼
  ┌───────────┐   tool call    ┌────────────────────────┐
  │   model   │ ─────────────▶ │ read · search · edit    │
  │  (agent)  │ ◀───────────── │ terminal · tests · lint │
  └───────────┘    result      └────────────────────────┘
        │            ▲                    │
        │            └── approval ────────┘  (diff / command shown to you)
        ▼
   final answer            up to `maxAgentSteps` iterations (default 25)

If the model announces a plan but calls no tool, WayCode detects the stall and nudges it to act — so you don't get a to-do list instead of working code.

Multi-agent mode (waycode.multiAgent.enabled)

Two models, each doing what it's best at:

  you (any language)
        │
        ▼
  🗣️  COMMUNICATOR ──── CHAT? ────▶ answers you directly (no coder round-trip)
        │
      CODE? → precise English task spec
        │
        ▼
  👨‍💻  CODER  ──▶ tools ──▶ verify (tests / lint) ──▶ fix ──▶ repeat
        │
        ▼  ground truth: the exact tool calls that really ran
  🗣️  COMMUNICATOR ──▶ explains the result in your language

The communicator can be a small local model (default: gemma2 on Ollama) while the coder is a code-strong model — and it only ever reports what actually happened.

Modes

Switch with the mode button in the chat, or cycle with Shift+Tab.

Even in 🌙 Auto, an overwrite that would wipe most of an existing file still asks — a "summary" write that collapses a 500-line file is never approved silently.

Tools

Guardrails: every path is resolved inside the workspace (no ../ escapes), and commands that never exit (npm run dev, vite, tsc --watch, docker compose up, …) are refused with a pointer to a one-shot check instead — so a run can't burn its budget on a watcher. Tool names models commonly guess (bash, str_replace, ls, grep, …) are aliased to the real ones.

Providers

All providers share one HTTP layer with timeouts and readable errors, so a loading local model can't hang the panel forever.

Commands

Settings

Project memory

WayCode carries three kinds of memory into every request:

• WAYCODE.md — a per-project context file you own (also read from .waycode.md or .waycode/context.md). Put the stack, conventions, and build/test commands there; it's injected into every system prompt. Run WayCode: Edit Project Context File to scaffold it.
• Workspace memory — pinned files, recorded decisions, and preferences, persisted per workspace.
• Conversation history — past threads, saved globally and reopenable from 🕘.

Development

npm install
npm run compile      # tsc -p ./
npm run watch        # rebuild on change
npm run typecheck    # tsc --noEmit
npm test             # node --test out/test/  (compiles first)
npm run lint
npx @vscode/vsce package   # → waycode-<version>.vsix

Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host with WayCode loaded. CI type-checks, compiles, and tests on Node 18 and 20.

Layout

src/
├─ extension.ts          activation + all commands
├─ config.ts             settings & Secret Storage
├─ agent/
│  ├─ Agent.ts           the plan → act → verify → fix loop
│  ├─ Orchestrator.ts    communicator ⇄ coder pipeline
│  ├─ prompts.ts         system prompts
│  ├─ routing.ts         CHAT vs CODE classification
│  └─ history.ts         context-window trimming
├─ providers/            Anthropic · OpenAI · Ollama · Claude CLI (one interface)
├─ tools/                file · search · command tools, diffs, path safety
├─ context/              project snapshot + WAYCODE.md
├─ memory/               workspace memory + conversation history
├─ ui/                   chat webview + settings panel
└─ test/                 node:test suite

Adding a provider means implementing AIProvider and registering it in ProviderFactory; adding a tool means implementing Tool and listing it in ToolRegistry.default(). Nothing else changes.