FrontAgent

FrontAgent can now be used in two ways: the original fa CLI for terminal-first workflows, and this VS Code extension for a sidebar chat workflow.

This extension brings FrontAgent into VS Code as a Copilot-style sidebar chat. Configure your model once, attach the current file or selection, and ask FrontAgent to explain, edit, or debug your workspace without leaving the editor.

Usage

1. Install the extension from the VS Code Marketplace.
2. Open a project folder in VS Code.
3. Run FrontAgent: Configure and set your OpenAI-compatible or Anthropic API key.
4. Open the FrontAgent chat view from the Activity Bar.
5. Ask a question or request an edit, optionally with the current file, selected text, or a browser URL attached.

You can still use the CLI in the same project:

fa init
fa run "Create a user login page"

Features

• Chat with FrontAgent from the Activity Bar.
• Use the current file or selected text as chat context.
• Attach a browser URL as task context.
• Review phase, step, and RAG details in a collapsible run panel.
• Approve or reject sensitive tool actions inline.
• Initialize and validate sdd.yaml.
• Open run logs written under .frontagent/runs.

Requirements

FrontAgent for VS Code is a desktop extension. It uses Node.js, local file system access, shell tooling, and browser automation capabilities from the FrontAgent runtime.

Configure a provider, model, base URL, and API key with FrontAgent: Configure or the sidebar configuration panel before running tasks. API keys entered there are stored in VS Code SecretStorage. You can also use frontagent.apiKey in Settings as a fallback when you explicitly want a settings-based key.

Extension Settings

• frontagent.provider: LLM provider, anthropic or openai.
• frontagent.model: Model name.
• frontagent.baseUrl: API base URL.
• frontagent.apiKey: Optional API key fallback; SecretStorage is recommended.
• frontagent.maxTokens: Maximum output tokens.
• frontagent.temperature: Sampling temperature.
• frontagent.securityMode: Tool execution security mode.
• frontagent.rag.enabled: Enable the remote knowledge-base RAG flow.
• frontagent.rag.repo: Knowledge-base Git repository.
• frontagent.rag.branch: Knowledge-base branch.
• frontagent.runLog.enabled: Enable run logs.

Use FrontAgent: Show Extension Logs to inspect activation, command registration, runtime loading, and webview errors.

Known Limits

• Web extensions are not supported.
• Only one active FrontAgent run is allowed per workspace in this first version.
• Cancel is cooperative and stops at phase/step boundaries.