VSCode Extension

The KSail VSCode extension brings cluster management into your editor. It provides a sidebar with live cluster status, interactive wizards for cluster operations, a command palette, keyboard shortcuts, and a built-in MCP server for AI assistants.

Installation

See the Installation Guide — VSCode Extension for Marketplace and VSIX installation steps.

Prerequisites:

KSail CLI installed and available in PATH
Docker running (for local cluster operations)
K9s (optional — for Connect to Cluster command)

Features

Clusters View

The KSail sidebar panel lists your clusters with provider info and status indicators:

Icon	Meaning
Green pass icon (`pass`)	Cluster is running
Red slash icon (`circle-slash`)	Cluster is stopped
Server icon (`server`)	Status unknown
Spinning loader (`loading~spin`)	Cluster is being created

Right-click a cluster for context-sensitive actions:

All clusters: Connect to Cluster (K9s), Delete
Stopped / Unknown clusters: + Start
Running clusters: + Stop

Cluster Status View

The Cluster Status panel polls the active cluster every 10 seconds (configurable) and shows:

Health indicator: Healthy / Degraded / Error / Unknown
Pod summary: Pods grouped by namespace with running/pending/failed counts; click a failed or pending pod to view its logs
GitOps reconciliation: Flux or ArgoCD resource readiness (e.g., Flux (3/3 ready))

When no cluster is connected, the panel prompts you to create or start one.

Status Bar

A compact health indicator appears in the bottom status bar:

State	Display
Healthy	`✔ KSail: Healthy`
Degraded	`⚠ KSail: Degraded` (warning background)
Error	`✖ KSail: Error` (error background)
Unknown	`? KSail: Unknown`
No cluster	`? KSail: No Cluster`

Click the status bar item to manually refresh cluster status.

Interactive Wizards

The Init and Create commands launch multi-step wizards. Option lists are fetched at runtime from the KSail MCP schema, so they automatically stay in sync with the installed CLI version. If the MCP server is unreachable, a built-in fallback set is used:

Distribution: Vanilla, K3s, Talos (VCluster available when MCP schema is reachable)
Provider: Docker, Hetzner (Omni available when MCP schema is reachable)
Component configuration (CNI, CSI, GitOps engine, etc.)
Output path selection for generated files

MCP Server

The extension exposes KSail as an MCP server for AI assistants in VSCode (e.g., GitHub Copilot). No separate configuration is needed — the extension handles server lifecycle automatically. See MCP Server for details on available tools.

Commands

Access all commands via the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P / Ctrl+Shift+P):

Command	Description	Shortcut
`KSail: Init Cluster`	Initialize a new `ksail.yaml` configuration	`Cmd+Shift+K I`
`KSail: Create Cluster`	Create and start a cluster	`Cmd+Shift+K C`
`KSail: Delete Cluster`	Delete the cluster	`Cmd+Shift+K D`
`KSail: Start Cluster`	Start an existing cluster	—
`KSail: Stop Cluster`	Stop a running cluster	—
`KSail: Connect to Cluster (K9s)`	Open K9s terminal UI	—
`KSail: Refresh Clusters`	Refresh the clusters tree view	—
`KSail: Refresh Cluster Status`	Manually refresh cluster status	—
`KSail: Show Output`	Open the KSail output channel	—

Settings

Configure in VSCode settings (Cmd+, / Ctrl+,) or settings.json:

Setting	Description	Default
`ksail.binaryPath`	Path to the KSail binary	`ksail`
`ksail.statusPollingInterval`	Cluster status polling interval in seconds (5–300)	`10`

Development

Building

cd vsce
npm ci
npm run compile

Packaging

npx @vscode/vsce package --no-dependencies

Testing locally

Open the vsce folder in VSCode
Press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host
Test commands from the Command Palette