VS Code

There is no Skep VS Code extension. You don’t need one. Skep is a CLI; VS Code is an editor with a very good integrated terminal. The workflow below is how to use them together.

Setup

1. Install VS Code. Use the integrated terminal — no extra terminal extension required.
2. Install your LLM CLI. If you use Claude Code, install it globally and make sure claude --version works from the VS Code terminal. If a Claude Code VS Code extension exists that suits you, install it — Skep doesn’t care which frontend you use for the actual LLM session, only that the CLI is on PATH.
3. Register the Skep MCP server once, globally:

   skep mcp install

   This adds a skep entry to ~/.claude/settings.json and will be picked up by Claude Code regardless of how it’s launched.

Workflow

• Open your project in VS Code.
• Open the integrated terminal (Ctrl+`).
• Run skep task create "...", skep tasks, skep task show N, skep task approve N as usual.
• For task execution, the Skep daemon will try to spawn a tmux pane in your attached session. VS Code’s integrated terminal is not tmux, so the daemon’s pane-spawn won’t land there natively.

The pragmatic pattern: keep an external terminal emulator open next to VS Code with your tmux cockpit running (skep workspace watch + the daemon sessions). Use VS Code for editing and its integrated terminal for read-only commands like skep index ask and skep tasks. Let the cockpit handle task panes.

Optional: keybindings via tasks.json

Paste into .vscode/tasks.json to bind skep doctor and skep workspace watch to the VS Code tasks palette:

{
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "tasks": [
    {
      "label": "skep: doctor",
      "type": "shell",
      "command": "skep doctor",
      "problemMatcher": []
    },
    {
      "label": "skep: workspace watch",
      "type": "shell",
      "command": "skep workspace watch",
      "isBackground": true,
      "problemMatcher": []
    }
  ]
}

Then Ctrl+Shift+P → Tasks: Run Task → skep: doctor. Bind either to a keybinding through keybindings.json if you want.

Caveats

• No native tmux integration inside VS Code’s terminal. Use an external terminal for the cockpit.
• VS Code’s auto-save triggers fsnotify — Skep will re-index on every save, which is usually what you want, but watch for noisy CPU on very large projects.