PINIT

Pin important context from your development workflow and retrieve it without scrolling back through long-running sessions.

PINIT is a local-only VS Code extension. Select important terminal output, Pin it without interrupting your work, and retrieve the exact Captured Content from a persistent visual Board.

Install a VSIX

For local/offline testing, or when installing a specific packaged release, install a VSIX manually:

1. Download or build pin-it-<version>.vsix.
2. In VS Code, run Extensions: Install from VSIX... from the Command Palette.
3. Select the VSIX, open a folder or workspace, and reload if VS Code asks.
4. Select text in the integrated terminal and run PINIT: Pin Terminal Selection from its context menu. If the host does not expose the terminal selection context key, use PINIT: Pin Clipboard after the agent surface has copied the selection.
5. Use the PINIT status-bar button to open the Board.

The VS Code CLI equivalent is:

code --install-extension releases/pin-it-0.1.1.vsix

Privacy

PINIT makes no runtime network requests and has no accounts, telemetry, analytics, crash upload, cloud sync, or AI processing. Its complete storage, clipboard, deletion, recovery, Restricted Mode, and environment contract is in Privacy and Security.

Pins are stored in private, extension-managed storage for the current workspace. PINIT does not read or write workspace files. Terminal selection capture temporarily uses the system clipboard and restores the previous value when it can do so safely; clipboard-history utilities may still retain values.

Development

Use Node.js 22 or later; the pinned packaging CLI requires it.

npm install
npm run verify

Open this repository in VS Code and press F5 to launch the Run PINIT Extension Development Host configuration.

The current implementation contributes these commands:

• PINIT: Pin Terminal Selection captures selected terminal text, restores the previous clipboard when safe, and durably Pins the exact capture without opening the Board.
• PINIT: Pin Clipboard Pins the current clipboard as an honest fallback.
• PINIT: Open Board opens or reveals the workspace's Board.
• PINIT: Reset Layout confirms before returning every Pin to the default grid.
• PINIT: Open Storage Location opens the private workspace storage used by the Board.
• PINIT: Reset Board explicitly exits storage recovery mode after preserving the invalid raw files.

Keyboard shortcuts are available when the host exposes the corresponding VS Code context keys:

• Ctrl+Alt+P (Cmd+Alt+P on macOS) runs PINIT: Pin Terminal Selection when VS Code reports a native terminal selection.
• Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P (Cmd+Alt+Shift+P on macOS) runs PINIT: Pin Clipboard while VS Code reports terminal focus. This can be a fallback for agent terminals that copy selected text to the clipboard, but custom agent surfaces may expose neither context key. In that case, select the text, let the host copy it, then run PINIT: Pin Clipboard from the Command Palette.

Open a folder or workspace before Pinning. Each workspace has one private Board stored in VS Code's extension-managed storage outside the repository. Terminal capture temporarily uses the system clipboard, so clipboard-history tools may retain the sentinel or selected text. Terminal Origins record the terminal name and available working directory, but do not provide Jump to Source.

PINIT supports VS Code Desktop local workspaces and is designed for Remote SSH, WSL, and Dev Containers. VS Code for the Web is not a v1 target. PINIT declares full Restricted Mode support because it never reads or executes workspace files.

The core flow is: select terminal text, right-click, run PINIT: Pin Terminal Selection, continue working, and open the Board later when the context is needed.

For one-click access, use the permanent $(pin) PINIT button in the VS Code status bar. On the Board, drag a Pin by its header, edit its Pin Title inline, choose a named appearance, or delete it with a short-lived Undo opportunity. Captured Content stays read-only and selectable.

Board mutations are revision-checked and acknowledged only after durable persistence. PINIT atomically replaces the primary Board file where the VS Code storage provider supports rename, retains a last-known-good backup, and recovers from that backup without discarding an invalid primary. If both copies are invalid, PINIT disables mutations and offers storage inspection or an explicit Board reset; it never silently replaces corrupted data with an empty Board.

Release

Build and inspect a local release candidate with:

npm ci
npm run inspect:package
npm run package:vsix

The versioned artifact is written to releases/. To verify installation in an isolated editor profile, pass a VS Code-compatible CLI (defaults to code):

npm run smoke:vsix -- code

Publication is intentionally separate from packaging. Before publishing, complete the manual checks in docs/manual-tests/T07-release-candidate.md, confirm ownership of the vidhanvyrs Marketplace publisher, and upload the already-inspected VSIX.

License

PINIT is open-source software available under the MIT License.