ASKII

A fun VS Code extension that adds random kaomoji (Japanese emoticons) and AI-powered explanations to your code lines. Choose between Ollama, GitHub Copilot, LM Studio, OpenAI, or Anthropic as your AI provider, and toggle between humorous comments and helpful code advice!

Features

• Random Kaomoji: Adds a random kaomoji emoticon after the current line
• AI Explanations: Uses Ollama, GitHub Copilot, LM Studio, OpenAI, or Anthropic to generate concise explanations of your code
• Inline Helper Modes: Choose between off, helpful, funny, or wiki modes
• Wiki RAG: Index your own .md documentation files and inject relevant snippets as context into any command — or display them inline as you navigate code
• Multi-Platform AI: Support for Ollama (local), GitHub Copilot (cloud), LM Studio (local with official SDK), OpenAI (cloud, or any OpenAI-compatible API), and Anthropic (cloud, via official @anthropic-ai/sdk)
• Five Command Modes:
  • Ask ASKII: Ask questions about your selected code
  • ASKII Edit: Have ASKII modify your selected code based on your request
  • ASKII Do: Agentic workspace agent — view, list, create, modify, rename, and delete files across multiple rounds until the task is complete
  • ASKII Control: Give ASKII a screen instruction — it takes screenshots and drives your mouse and keyboard until the task is done
  • ASKII Browse: Give ASKII a browser task — it launches a Puppeteer browser, takes page screenshots, and navigates the web until the task is done

Requirements

Option 1: Ollama (Default)

• Ollama: Download and install from https://ollama.ai
• Pull a model, e.g., ollama pull gemma3:270m
• Make sure Ollama is running (default: http://localhost:11434)

Option 2: GitHub Copilot

• GitHub Copilot Extension: Install from the VS Code marketplace
• Active GitHub Copilot subscription
• Select copilot in the askii.llmPlatform setting

Option 3: LM Studio

• LM Studio: Download from https://lmstudio.ai
• Start LM Studio and load your preferred model
• Select lmstudio in the askii.llmPlatform setting

Option 4: OpenAI

• An OpenAI API key (or any OpenAI-compatible API key)
• Select openai in the askii.llmPlatform setting
• Set your API key in askii.openaiApiKey
• Optionally set a custom askii.openaiUrl for Azure OpenAI or other compatible APIs (leave empty for api.openai.com)

Option 5: Anthropic (New!)

• An Anthropic API key from console.anthropic.com
• Select anthropic in the askii.llmPlatform setting
• Set your API key in askii.anthropicApiKey
• Optionally set a model in askii.anthropicModel (default: claude-opus-4-6)

Usage

The extension automatically shows inline comments as you move your cursor through your code.

Choose Your LLM Platform

Open VS Code Settings (Ctrl+, or Cmd+,) and search for "ASKII LLM Platform" to choose:

• ollama (default)
• copilot
• lmstudio
• openai
• anthropic

Choose Your Inline Helper Mode

Search for "ASKII Inline Helper Mode" and select:

• off — No inline decorations
• helpful — Practical coding advice
• funny — Humorous comments (default)
• wiki — Shows a one-sentence explanation informed by your indexed wiki docs. Searches the wiki index for the current line and passes the top matching chunks as context to the LLM. Requires askii.wikiPath to be set and indexed

Commands

Ask ASKII

1. Select code in your editor
2. Open command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P or Cmd+Shift+P)
3. Search for "Ask ASKII"
4. Type your question
5. View the formatted markdown response in a side panel with VS Code theme-aware styling

ASKII Edit

1. Select code in your editor
2. Open command palette
3. Search for "ASKII Edit"
4. Describe the changes you want
5. The selected code will be replaced with the updated version

ASKII Do (AI Workspace Agent)

1. Open command palette
2. Search for "ASKII Do"
3. Describe what you want ASKII to do (e.g., "Create a unit test file for src/utils.ts")
4. ASKII shows the top-level workspace structure, then runs in a loop until the task is done or doMaxRounds is reached:
   • List Folder: ASKII can list any folder's contents ([file] / [folder] labels) to explore the workspace
   • View File: ASKII can read file contents to understand your codebase before acting
   • Analyze & Act: Based on what it reads, ASKII issues create, modify, rename, or delete actions
   • Continuous Loop: After each round ASKII is asked "what next?" — it keeps going until it returns []
5. Confirm each action before it's applied:
   • CREATE: Confirmation to create new files
   • MODIFY: Confirmation to modify existing files
   • RENAME: Confirmation to rename or move files
   • DELETE: Warning confirmation for deletions
   • VIEW / LIST: No confirmation needed (read-only)

ASKII Control (Screen Agent)

1. Open command palette
2. Search for "ASKII Control"
3. Describe what you want done on screen (e.g., "Open Notepad and type hello world")
4. ASKII takes a screenshot and proposes the next action (mouse move, click, or keyboard input) with its reasoning
5. Confirm each action before it executes — or enable askii.doAutoConfirm to run unattended
6. After each action a new screenshot is taken and the loop repeats until ASKII returns DONE or askii.doMaxRounds is reached

Requires a vision-capable model such as llava or moondream2.

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ASKII Browse (Browser Agent)

1. Open command palette
2. Search for "ASKII Browse"
3. Describe what you want done in a browser (e.g., "Go to https://example.com and click Learn more")
4. ASKII launches a Puppeteer browser (visible by default), takes a screenshot of the current page and its URL, then proposes the next action with its reasoning. Supported actions:
   • goto: Navigate to a URL
   • click: Click an element by CSS selector
   • type: Type text into an element by CSS selector
   • wait_for: Wait until a CSS selector appears in the DOM
   • back / forward: Navigate the browser history
   • DONE: Returned when the task is complete
5. Confirm each action before it executes — or enable askii.doAutoConfirm to run unattended
6. After each action a new screenshot is taken and the loop repeats until ASKII returns DONE or askii.doMaxRounds is reached
7. The browser is closed automatically when the loop ends

Requires a vision-capable model. Set askii.browserHeadless to false (default) to watch the browser window while ASKII works.

Requires Chrome or Chromium to be installed. Set askii.chromePath to the executable path if it is not detected automatically.

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Wiki RAG (Documentation Context)

Point ASKII at a folder of .md files and it will index them into a local vector database (powered by MiniSearch — pure JS, no native dependencies). The relevant chunks are automatically prepended as context when you Ask, Edit, or Do tasks.

1. Set askii.wikiPath to the folder containing your .md docs
2. Run ASKII: Reload Wiki from the command palette (or status-bar menu) to build the index — a progress spinner shows while indexing and a notification confirms when done
3. Enable askii.wikiEnabled to inject wiki context into Ask / Edit / Do commands
4. Optionally set askii.inlineHelperMode to wiki for inline decorations that show LLM explanations enriched by your docs

The index is cached in memory after the first load — no disk reads on subsequent queries.

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Quick Access with Status Bar Button

Click the ASKII (⌐■_■) button in the bottom right status bar to quickly access:

• Ask ASKII
• ASKII Edit
• ASKII Do
• ASKII Control
• ASKII Browse
• Reload Wiki
• Clear Cache

Configuration

All settings can be customized in VS Code Settings (Ctrl+, or Cmd+,):

• askii.llmPlatform: Choose LLM provider (ollama | copilot | lmstudio | openai | anthropic)
• askii.ollamaUrl: URL for Ollama API server (default: http://localhost:11434)
• askii.lmStudioUrl: URL for LM Studio API server (default: ws://localhost:1234)
• askii.ollamaModel: Ollama model name (default: gemma3:270m)
• askii.copilotModel: GitHub Copilot model (default: gpt-4o)
• askii.lmStudioModel: LM Studio model (default: qwen/qwen3-coder-30b)
• askii.openaiApiKey: OpenAI API key (used when llmPlatform is openai)
• askii.openaiModel: OpenAI model (default: gpt-4o)
• askii.openaiUrl: OpenAI-compatible base URL — leave empty for api.openai.com, or use for Azure OpenAI / other compatible APIs
• askii.anthropicApiKey: Anthropic API key (used when llmPlatform is anthropic)
• askii.anthropicModel: Anthropic model (default: claude-opus-4-6; e.g. claude-sonnet-4-6, claude-haiku-4-5)
• askii.inlineHelperMode: Inline helper mode (off | helpful | funny | wiki, default: off)
• askii.wikiEnabled: Enable wiki RAG context for Ask / Edit / Do commands (default: false)
• askii.wikiPath: Path to a folder containing .md documentation files to index for wiki RAG. Run ASKII: Reload Wiki after changing this or updating the docs
• askii.doMaxRounds: Maximum interaction rounds for ASKII Do / Control / Browse commands (default: 5)
• askii.doAutoConfirm: Skip confirmation prompts in ASKII Do / Control / Browse (default: false)
• askii.formatAfterEdit: Auto-format files after ASKII Edit or Do (default: false)
• askii.browserHeadless: Run the Puppeteer browser headlessly for ASKII Browse (default: false — browser window is visible)
• askii.chromePath: Path to the Chrome/Chromium executable for ASKII Browse (e.g. C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe). Leave empty to use the system default

Default Mode Examples

Funny Mode (Default)

const sum = a + b; (◕‿◕) The age-old tradition of making numbers hang out together!

Helpful Mode

const sum = a + b; (◕‿◕) Adds two variables; prefer const for variables that won't be reassigned.

Wiki Mode

connectToDatabase(config); (⌐■_■) [docs/database.md — Connection] Pass the config object returned by loadConfig(); see the Connection section for supported options.

Technical Details

• Markdown Rendering: Ask ASKII responses are rendered using markdown-it with syntax highlighting and VS Code theme integration
• Confirmation Dialogs: ASKII Do command requires confirmation for all write operations (CREATE, MODIFY, DELETE) to prevent accidental changes
• Smart Caching: Inline explanations are cached to minimize API calls
• Debouncing: Requests are debounced for optimal performance
• Mouse/Keyboard Control: ASKII Control uses platform shell commands (PowerShell on Windows, AppleScript on macOS, xdotool on Linux) instead of native Node modules, so the extension bundles cleanly with no native .node files. Linux users need xdotool installed (sudo apt install xdotool or equivalent)

Contributing

Love ASKII? Feel free to contribute to the project on GitHub!

Enjoy! (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ