Views and interaction

Decide how users enter the feature, where they interact, and how they reopen it after closing.

Choose a surface

Need	Contribution
Independent navigation page	navigation referencing a resource: "none" view
File or general tool tab	location: "context", opened by a command, handler or launcher
Workbench or pane panel	A kind: "view" placement with target and presentation
Host content area or control	kind: "slot" / "control", with host-owned placement and fallback
Decoration without pointer input	kind: "decoration" on a public anchor

Render with render(context, container). The container fills its isolated viewport with no default padding. The plugin owns its layout and cannot access the parent DOM. Prebuild Vue or React into browser modules; see Dependencies.

Commands and menus

Declare commands and register matching handlers in the background. Use hidden: true for commands intended only for your views. A slash declaration uses /plugin-call-name:command and runs without automatically requesting a model.

Menus place declared commands in public targets. Selected text is supplied only after a click and with selectedContent permission; files use their own resource permission. An input menu may return {insertText}; the host inserts it only into the unchanged original draft and does not send it.

context.subscriptions.add(
  context.commands.register(`${context.extension.id}.open`, async () => {
    await context.views.open(`${context.extension.id}.panel`)
  }),
)

Placement and visibility

Presentation describes the outer frame's position, dimensions and order. Background placements.show/hide opens or closes regular mounts; a view can update its frame with setPresentation. Keep the originating pane instanceId across asynchronous operations.

The when condition uses public page context. Visibility callbacks report whether the view is actually visible. A hidden view may retain its instance and subscriptions; the plugin decides whether to pause media or animation. Restoration should not replay user actions.

For slots and controls, show/hide changes availability in the current background lifecycle. Store persistent preferences separately. setActive(false) yields to the host's default content when the plugin has nothing to display.

Editor interactions

setDocumentInfo({title,dirty}) changes metadata, not file content. Use onBeforeClose to wait for saving, and maintain recovery drafts during editing; see Files and documents.

Clipboard read/write requires independent permissions and foreground visibility and focus. Text plus HTML is limited to 4 MiB. Operations fail after closing or losing focus; navigator.clipboard does not replace the SDK bridge.

Verify the interface

Check independent instances, page switching, theme changes, reopen paths and disabling. Replacement controls also need stale-proposal rejection and a working default fallback on failure.