CodeTracer VS Code Extension

Bring the power of CodeTracer’s time-travel debugging into your Visual Studio Code workflow.
This extension integrates the CodeTracer debugger directly into VS Code using the DAP integrated communication, so you can record, replay, and trace your code without leaving your IDE.

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🚀 Introduction

The CodeTracer VS Code Extension allows you to:

• Start and stop CodeTracer debug sessions directly from VS Code.
• View call traces, event logs, and variable histories inside VS Code panels.
• Jump backward and forward through program execution without restarting.
• Decorate source lines with trace information inline in your editor.
• Interact with recorded traces just like you would in the standalone GUI.

Note:
Currently, only Ruby supports the "Record and Run Current File" feature directly inside VS Code.
However, you can load and explore recent traces created with the standalone CodeTracer app, as well as stylus transactions recorded with CodeTracer.

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💡 Use Cases

Here are some ways you can use this extension:

1. Debug hard-to-reproduce bugs without restarting
   Record a session once, then replay it as many times as needed to track down the root cause.

2. Find the origin of any value
   Right-click a line and jump to where a variable’s value was last modified.

3. Decorate your code with runtime information (Work in progress) The extension can highlight lines with tracepoints, errors, or important runtime events directly in the Monaco editor inside VS Code.

4. Step through execution history
   Move forward and backward through recorded execution, inspecting variable changes at every step.

5. Integrate with existing CodeTracer traces
   Open and analyze .trace files produced by the standalone CodeTracer app or CodeTracer Stylus transaction recordings.

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📦 Installation

1. Install the CodeTracer VS Code Extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace.

2. Make sure you have the CodeTracer executable installed on your system.
   Download it here:

   

   

3. Configure the path to the codetracer executable in the extension settings with runnablePath setting.

Note:
If you are using NixOS you will need an appimage-run package in the environment of the running VsCode alternatively you can try to build a pure nix package from the developer env of CodeTracer with just build-nix and point to its ct binary

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🛠 Usage

You need to Toggle CodeTracer from the command pallette, or to use its commands from the CodeTracer view in the vscode sibder.

Build/recording is usually done separately with the CodeTracer commands out of the extension, but in some cases one can record+replay the current file even from the extension.

By default Toggle CodeTracer tries to show you available replays, and you can choose going through them, or through recorded stylus transactions from the sidebar; you can also do those actions:

1. Record and Run Current File (Ruby only)

   • Open a Ruby file and run the Record and Run Current File command from the Command Palette.

2. Navigate the Trace

   • Use the sidebar panels (Call Trace, Event Log, Terminal Output) to explore the recorded execution.
   • Click on any event to jump to the corresponding line in your code.

3. Context Menu Commands

   • Right-click inside the editor to use extension commands like “Forward Source Line Jump” or “Smart Jump” to quickly navigate execution.

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📸 Key Features in VS Code

• Call Trace Panel – Navigate the entire function call tree.
• Event Log Panel – Chronological list of all significant runtime events.
• Variable History – Inspect every value a variable held during execution.
• Terminal Output Replay – See exactly when and where output was generated.
• Scratchpad – Pin and compare values from any point in time.

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📅 Roadmap

• More granular inline decorations for variable changes.
• Integrate omniscience and tracepoint features.

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📜 License

CodeTracer is distributed under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPLv3).