VS Code MCP

Secure local MCP access to VS Code's live editor state, repository search, language intelligence, controlled workspace edits, configured tasks, and named run/debug configurations.

The extension contains the exact version-matched local server. Setup is explicit and local: no background download, updater, or service is installed.

Install

1. Install VS Code MCP from the VS Code Marketplace.
2. Run VS Code MCP: Set Up MCP Client and choose automatic Codex setup or copy a reviewable config snippet for another client.
3. Review and approve the exact configuration block, then restart the MCP client.
4. Open a trusted local workspace and run VS Code MCP: Enable for This Workspace.

The setup command verifies and installs the bundled server under VS Code's user storage. The standalone checksummed server archive remains available from GitHub Releases for manual installations. See the complete installation guide.

Capabilities

• Bounded file discovery, batch reads, and dirty-buffer-aware literal search.
• Diagnostics, navigation, symbols, completions, code actions, hierarchies, hints, folds, selections, and document links through VS Code providers.
• Version-checked multi-document edits, create/move/delete, save/revert, rename, formatting, and inspectable text-edit-only code actions.
• Theme-aware added/modified/deleted highlights, overview-ruler markers, Explorer badges, single-file and multi-file diff review, and next/previous navigation for MCP-authored changes.
• Configured VS Code tasks and exact named run/debug configurations.

Read access is enabled per trusted workspace. Write and task/debug execution are separate visible, memory-only session grants that default to off and are independently revocable.

Review MCP changes

Every successful content mutation is attributed visually:

• green marks added text, blue marks replacements, and red marks deletion anchors;
• the overview ruler and Explorer A/M badges show affected locations and files;
• click MCP: n changed to open one side-by-side diff or a single multi-file changes editor when several files were changed;
• run VS Code MCP: Go to Next Highlighted Change or Go to Previous Highlighted Change to navigate exact ranges; and
• clear the active file or the complete session with the matching Clear Change Highlights commands.

The vscodeMcp.changeHighlights settings control rendering, Explorer badges, and the status item. Metadata and before-snapshots are bounded, memory-only, and never written to disk or returned over MCP. Manual edits clear attribution for the affected file so stale ranges are never presented as MCP-authored.

There is no generic shell, terminal input, Git control, arbitrary VS Code command, debug-console evaluation, arbitrary DAP request, telemetry, or network listener.

Compatibility

Version 1.0 supports standard local VS Code Desktop 1.101.0 or newer on macOS and Linux. Windows, Remote SSH, WSL, Dev Containers, Codespaces, VS Code for the Web, virtual workspaces, Snap, and Flatpak are not supported and fail closed.

Security and privacy

Review the security policy before reporting a vulnerability. The extension does not send telemetry or workspace content to the project maintainers. See the privacy statement for the boundary between this local bridge and the user's MCP client/model.

Documentation, support, source, checksums, SBOM, and complete release artifacts are in the GitHub repository.