Copilot Debugger

Local developer viewer for VS Code Copilot Chat sessions.

Contents

• What It Is
• Installation
• Troubleshooting
• Screenshots
• Author
• Contribute
• License

What It Is

Copilot Debugger reads local VS Code Copilot Chat transcript and debug JSONL files and shows them in a compact web UI.

It scans local VS Code storage, normalizes sessions, and displays session metadata, turns, models, tools, agents, token usage, and estimated AI usage costs.

The app does not send your data anywhere. It reads files from your machine and serves the UI locally. It does not call GitHub, Microsoft, Copilot, or any external analytics API.

Default data sources:

• GitHub.copilot-chat/transcripts/*.jsonl
• GitHub.copilot-chat/debug-logs/*/*.jsonl

Main stack:

• React + Vite frontend in src/
• Node.js + Express backend in server/
• REST API under /api/*

Installation

Requirements:

• Node.js 20.9 or newer
• VS Code with local Copilot Chat session logs

Run the published package:

npx copilot-debugger

Local development:

npm install
npm run dev

Default local URLs:

• Web UI: http://127.0.0.1:5173
• API: http://127.0.0.1:4317

Useful commands:

npm run typecheck
npm run build
npm run start

Optional environment variables:

• PORT - backend port
• VSCODE_WORKSPACE_STORAGE_ROOT - custom VS Code workspaceStorage root
• VSCODE_COPILOT_SESSION_ROOT - direct root for test/session data
• SESSION_POLL_INTERVAL_MS - fallback refresh interval

Example:

VSCODE_WORKSPACE_STORAGE_ROOT="/path/to/workspaceStorage" npm run dev

Troubleshooting

• No sessions are shown: check that VS Code has Copilot Chat logs under workspaceStorage.
• Wrong storage location: set VSCODE_WORKSPACE_STORAGE_ROOT explicitly.
• Port is already used: set PORT, for example PORT=4321 npm run dev.
• Broken or incomplete data: Copilot Chat log formats are not a stable public API and may change between VS Code versions.
• TypeScript errors after changes: run npm run typecheck before debugging runtime behavior.

Screenshots

	Application previews are shown here.

Author

• Mirek Holec
• Microsoft MVP
• Web: holec.ai
• GitHub: mirekholec

Contribute

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Keep changes small, focused, and tested with npm run typecheck.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.