Installation

Install ContextManager and set up your first project in under a minute.

From VS Code Marketplace

  1. Open VS Code
  2. Go to Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X)
  3. Search for “ContextManager”
  4. Click Install
  5. Reload VS Code when prompted

ContextManager requires VS Code 1.100.0+ and GitHub Copilot to be installed and active.

From VSIX (Manual)

If you’re building from source or using a pre-release version:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/GittyHarsha/ContextManager.git
cd ContextManager

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build and install
.\install.ps1 build-and-install

Or install a .vsix file directly:

code --install-extension context-manager.vsix

Post-Installation

After installation, you’ll see:

  1. 📖 Book icon in the Activity Bar (sidebar)
  2. Status bar item showing the active project name
  3. 7 Language Model Tools available in Copilot Chat (type #ctx to access)

Verify Installation

Open the Dashboard (click the status bar item or run ContextManager: Open Dashboard). You should see the four tabs: Intelligence, Knowledge, Context, and Settings. If no project exists yet, you’ll be prompted to create one.

System Requirements

Requirement Minimum
VS Code 1.100.0+
GitHub Copilot Latest version
OS Windows, macOS, or Linux
Node.js Not required (bundled via VS Code)

Data Storage

ContextManager stores data in two locations:

Data Location Scope
Projects, cards, intelligence globalStorageUri (VS Code managed) Global
FTS search index globalStorageUri/search-fts4.db Global
Hook queue, scripts ~/.contextmanager/ User-wide
Session context ~/.contextmanager/session-context.txt User-wide

All data is stored locally. Nothing is sent to external servers beyond the standard VS Code language model API calls.

Agent Hooks (Optional)

ContextManager includes an optional hook system that captures AI interactions from VS Code Copilot’s transcript pipeline. This enables automatic card queue population without manual intervention.

The hook script (capture.ps1) is automatically installed to ~/.contextmanager/scripts/ on first activation. It watches for:

  • UserPromptSubmit - Injects selected knowledge cards and custom instruction into every prompt
  • PostToolUse - Captures tool executions and harvests completed turns (disabled by default)
  • PreCompact - Extracts multi-turn context before summarization
  • Stop - Records final exchange for card queue processing

Hooks are optional. All core features (knowledge cards, search, dashboard, LM tools) work without hooks enabled.

Claude Code Plugin (Optional)

If you use Claude Code for terminal-based AI sessions, install the ContextManager plugin so Claude Code sessions capture knowledge and have MCP access to your project memory.

claude plugin install GittyHarsha/ContextManager:claude-code-plugin

This installs hooks (Stop, PostToolUse, PreCompact, session events) and an MCP server that gives Claude Code read/write access to your knowledge cards.

Verify inside a Claude Code session:

/mcp

Quick-Start Alternative

If you just want hooks without the MCP server:

  1. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P)
  2. Run ContextManager: Install Claude Code Hooks
  3. This writes hooks to .claude/settings.json in the active project root

You can also click 🟣 Install Claude Code Hooks on the Dashboard → Settings tab.

Both the Copilot CLI plugin and Claude Code plugin support automatic card queue population. agentStop / Stop hooks fire when the agent completes a turn, producing card queue candidates.

For more details, see the plugin README.

Copilot CLI Plugin (Optional)

If you use GitHub Copilot in the terminal, you can install the ContextManager plugin so CLI sessions also capture knowledge and have access to your cards via MCP.

copilot plugin install GittyHarsha/ContextManager:plugin

The VS Code extension must be running so HookWatcher can ingest events from the CLI. Verify the MCP server inside Copilot CLI with /mcp show contextmanager.

For more details, see the plugin README.

Upgrading

When updating to a new version:

  1. VS Code handles the extension update automatically
  2. On first activation, any data migrations run transparently
  3. The hook script is updated if a newer version is bundled

Migration Notes

Version Migration
1.8.0+ Storage migrated from globalState to disk-backed JSON files
1.8.0+ FTS migrated from FTS5 to FTS4 (sql.js compatibility)
2.0.0+ Card queue moved from standalone tab to Intelligence tab

Next Steps

Getting Started →