Chat with the Switchboard inference exchange right inside your editor, with image and OCR support, live streaming, and rich Markdown, using your personal API key and paying per request in $SWCH.
Switchboard is an inference exchange: instead of you picking a model, an auction routes every prompt to the cheapest reliable offer for its difficulty tier. This extension speaks the exchange's OpenAI-compatible chat API, streams tokens as they arrive, and shows a per-request receipt (routed model, savings vs GPT-4o, $SWCH charged). You never choose a model; the auction does it for you.
Features
- Sidebar chat. A SwitchCode icon in the Activity Bar opens a dedicated chat panel. First use asks for your API key, then gives you a scrollable, streaming, multi-turn conversation. Header buttons for New Chat and Sign Out.
- Images and OCR (vision). Attach a screenshot or photo (the attach button, paste from the clipboard, or drag and drop onto the panel) and ask about it. The exchange routes image prompts to a vision-capable model automatically. A one-tap OCR button extracts the text from an attached image.
- Rich Markdown. Answers render with headings, lists, links, inline code, and fenced code blocks with a Copy button (horizontally scrollable). Built with DOM text nodes only, so model output can never inject markup.
@switchboardchat participant. Ask in the native VS Code Chat view; prior turns are included as context and responses stream in as Markdown.- Ask about selection. Select code, run Switchboard: Ask about selection, type a question; the answer streams into an Output channel.
- Secure key storage. Your API key lives in VS Code SecretStorage, never in settings or plaintext. A 401 shows an inline Reconnect; it never silently wipes your key or drops your conversation.
Install
- VS Code Marketplace. Search SwitchCode in the Extensions view.
- Open VSX (VS Codium / Cursor / Windsurf). Search SwitchCode.
- Sideload a
.vsix:code --install-extension switchcode-0.1.2.vsix, or Extensions view, then Install from VSIX.
Get an API key
Switchboard uses Solana wallet sign-in:
- Open the console at https://switchesboard.com.
- Connect a wallet (Phantom / Solflare).
- Click SIGN IN and sign the one-time challenge message.
- Your key is minted and shown once. It starts with
sk-swch-. Copy it. - In VS Code, paste it into the chat panel's Connect field (or run Switchboard: Set API key).
You pay per request in $SWCH. Top up with the + DEPOSIT button on the console (an on-chain transfer to the credits vault). If you run low, the error says exactly how much to deposit and the panel shows a Deposit $SWCH button.
Usage
Sidebar chat
Click the SwitchCode icon in the Activity Bar to open the Chat panel.
- First run shows a key gate: paste your
sk-swch-...key and click Connect (or Get a key to open the console). - Type and press Enter to send (Shift+Enter for a newline). Answers stream live; Stop cancels an in-flight reply.
- Attach an image: click the attach button, paste an image, or drag and drop it onto the panel. Attached images show as removable thumbnails. Hit OCR to pull the text out of them.
- Header buttons: New Chat clears the thread; Sign Out removes the key and returns to the gate.
@switchboard chat participant
@switchboard explain what a Solana PDA is and when to use one
The participant is sticky, so follow-ups stay with @switchboard.
Ask about selection
Select some code, run Switchboard: Ask about selection from the Command Palette, then type your question. The answer streams into the Switchboard Output channel.
Commands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
Switchboard: Ask about selection |
Ask about the current selection. |
Switchboard: Set API key |
Store or replace your sk-swch-... key. |
New Chat |
Clear the sidebar conversation (also a header button). |
Sign Out |
Delete the stored key (also a header button). |
Configuration
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
switchboard.baseUrl |
https://switchesboard.com/v1 |
Base URL of the API (the /v1 root). Point it at http://localhost:8787/v1 for local development. |
The API routes by an auto-classified difficulty tier, so the extension does
not send a model field; the exchange ignores it and picks the winner.
Privacy
- Your prompts, selected code, and attached images are sent only to the
configured
switchboard.baseUrl(the Switchboard exchange), as a normal HTTPS request authenticated by your API key. - The API key is stored in VS Code SecretStorage and sent only as a
Bearertoken to that endpoint. It is never logged or written to settings. - No telemetry is collected by this extension.
License
MIT. The full license text ships in the LICENSE file inside the extension package.