IDEAS - IDE Adapter Skill

Connect to the IDE Adapter VS Code extension WebSocket server and use VS Code's language intelligence, git history, and file system features from Claude Code.

Abbreviation: IDEAS (IDE Adapter Skill) - pronounced "ideas"

Prerequisites

1. IDE Adapter extension must be running in VS Code
2. Python dependency: pip install websocket-client

Settings Auto-Detection

The script automatically reads port and token from .vscode/settings.json in the current directory or any parent directory. No need to pass --port or --token manually as long as the script is run from inside (or below) the workspace directory.

// .vscode/settings.json
{
  "idea.server.port": 7200,
  "idea.server.authToken": "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx"
}

If explicit values are provided via --port / --token, those take priority over the file.

Workflow

Step 1: Run the client script

python <skill-dir>/scripts/idea_client.py --topic <topic> --params '<json>'

The script: auto-loads settings -> connect -> handshake -> request -> print JSON -> exit.

Step 2: Parse the response

Success: response has result key Error: response has error key with code and message

See references/protocol.md for all result shapes.

Windows (Git Bash) - Required Workarounds

Two issues occur when running idea_client.py directly in Git Bash on Windows:

Issue 1: Path expansion of /app/vscode/...

Git Bash expands /app/vscode/... to C:/Program Files/Git/app/vscode/..., breaking the topic.

Fix: Use MSYS_NO_PATHCONV=1 prefix OR call via Python subprocess (recommended).

Issue 2: cp949 encoding error

Python's stdout on Korean Windows defaults to cp949, causing UnicodeEncodeError when the response contains non-cp949 characters (e.g., em dash - in commit messages).

Fix: The script now calls sys.stdout.reconfigure(encoding="utf-8") automatically. However, if running via subprocess from another Python script, pass encoding='utf-8'.

Recommended call pattern on Windows

Always call via Python subprocess to avoid both issues at once:

import subprocess, sys, os

SCRIPT = "C:/Users/<user>/.claude/skills/ide-adapter-skill/scripts/idea_client.py"
env = {**os.environ, "PYTHONIOENCODING": "utf-8"}

result = subprocess.run(
    [sys.executable, SCRIPT, "--topic", "/app/vscode/fs/findFiles",
     "--params", '{"query": "App", "include": "**/*.tsx"}'],
    capture_output=True, text=True, encoding="utf-8", env=env,
    cwd="<workspace-path>"   # ensures .vscode/settings.json is found
)
print(result.stdout)

Setting cwd to the workspace root ensures settings.json is found for auto-detection.

Quick Reference: Common Tasks

Find files by name

--topic /app/vscode/fs/findFiles --params '{"query": "App", "include": "**/*.tsx"}'

Search text in workspace

--topic /app/vscode/edit/find --params '{"pattern": "IHandler", "include": "**/*.ts"}'

Get diagnostics (errors/warnings)

--topic /app/vscode/diag/list --params '{"filePath": "src/extension.ts", "severity": "error"}'

Find symbol definition (line/character are 0-indexed)

--topic /app/vscode/nav/definition --params '{"filePath": "/abs/path/file.ts", "line": 10, "character": 5}'

Git history of a file

--topic /app/vscode/history/list --params '{"filePath": "src/extension.ts", "maxCount": 10}'

Diff working tree vs HEAD

--topic /app/vscode/history/diff --params '{"filePath": "src/extension.ts", "fromIndex": 0, "toIndex": 1}'

Roll back to a commit (toIndex=1=HEAD, toIndex=2=HEAD~1)

--topic /app/vscode/history/rollback --params '{"filePath": "src/extension.ts", "toIndex": 2}'

VS Code local save history

--topic /app/vscode/localhistory/list --params '{"filePath": "src/extension.ts"}'

Full Protocol Reference

See references/protocol.md for all topics, params, result shapes, error codes, and index semantics for git history.

Troubleshooting