Quick Serve

Manage and monitor local dev servers from the VS Code sidebar.

Features

• Sidebar panel — see all your servers at a glance with live status indicators (up/down/unknown)
• Health monitoring — automatic polling detects when servers go down and notifies you
• One-click actions — start servers in integrated or external terminal, open in browser
• Expandable server details — expand any server to view and edit individual attributes (name, URL, start command, group)
• Drag & drop — reorder servers or move them between groups by dragging
• AI-powered suggestions — scan a project folder and let AI discover servers, URLs, and start commands
• AI-powered grouping — automatically organize servers into logical groups (Frontend, Backend, etc.) with a single command
• Multi-provider AI — works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or any OpenAI-compatible API (OpenRouter, Ollama, etc.)
• Shell alias detection — AI discovers your custom shell aliases and functions that start servers
• Proxy URL detection — finds local proxy URLs (*.dev, *.test, *.local) from project configs

Installation

# Package the extension
npx @vscode/vsce package

# Install in VS Code
code --install-extension vscode-quick-serve-*.vsix

# Install in Cursor
cursor --install-extension vscode-quick-serve-*.vsix

Updating

# Disable, install new version, re-enable
code --disable-extension quick-serve.vscode-quick-serve
code --install-extension vscode-quick-serve-*.vsix
code --enable-extension quick-serve.vscode-quick-serve

Replace code with cursor for Cursor.

Getting Started

1. Install the extension
2. Open the Quick Serve panel in the activity bar
3. Click + to add a server manually, or use AI suggestions

Manual Setup

For each server, provide:

• Name — a label (e.g. "Frontend Dev")
• URL — the local URL (e.g. http://localhost:3000)
• Start command — shell command to start it (e.g. cd /path/to/project && npm run dev)

AI Suggestions

1. Run "Quick Serve: Enable AI Suggestions" from the command palette (Cmd+Shift+P)
2. Enter your AI provider API key (stored securely in VS Code's encrypted storage)
3. Pick the parent folder containing your projects
4. AI scans each subfolder, discovers servers, and presents suggestions
5. Select which servers to add

Commands

Available via the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P / Ctrl+Shift+P):

Command	Description
Quick Serve: Set AI API Key	Set or clear the AI provider API key
Quick Serve: Enable AI Suggestions	Enable AI and run the first scan
Quick Serve: Group Servers (AI)	Organize servers into logical groups using AI
Quick Serve: Clear Server Groups	Remove all group assignments

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
quickServe.terminalMode	integrated	integrated or external terminal
quickServe.ai.enabled	false	Enable AI suggestions
quickServe.ai.provider	openai	openai, anthropic, google, or openai-compatible
quickServe.ai.model	gpt-5.2	Model ID for the selected provider
quickServe.ai.maxSteps	null	Max AI exploration steps (null = no limit)
quickServe.ai.baseUrl	""	Custom base URL for openai-compatible provider
quickServe.servers	[]	Server list (editable in settings.json)

License

MIT