Searchlight: Local Code Review

A local-only VS Code extension for reviewing your own git branch diffs the way you'd review a pull request — native inline comment threads, a four-view "PR panel", /tag classification, and a one-click Ask Copilot round-trip — all offline, with every comment stored as plain JSON on disk.

Status: local-only, single-developer tool. The extension never calls a language model directly — all AI work happens through an external copilot CLI shell-out. Reviews live under .vscode/searchlight-reviews/ (no server, no database, no network), a superset of — and never a clobber of — the original Gururagavendra.local-pr-review format.

Screenshot

Captured with the demo dataset (synthetic, no PII) — see DEMO.md.

What it does

• Four-view review panel in a dedicated Activity Bar container, all driven by one in-memory active comparison (base = target branch, compare = source branch under review):
  • Comparison — the current Base / Compare branches; click to pick, ⇄ to swap.
  • Changed Files — a hierarchical folder tree of git diff base...compare with per-file reviewed checkboxes; click opens a native diff.
  • Commits — git log base..compare; click copies the full SHA.
  • Conversations — every comment thread for the active review; click jumps to file:line.
• Native inline comment threads — comments render as first-class VS Code CommentController threads in the editor gutter, with reply, resolve / unresolve, and copy commands.
• /tag classification — type / in any comment box for autocomplete over the tag set; tags are merged into the thread on submit.
• Ask Copilot round-trip — hand a review thread to the copilot CLI; when the agent writes its reply back into comments.json, a file watcher reloads and re-renders it in-thread. The extension only ever shells out — it never calls a model itself.
• Plain-JSON storage — reviews are human-readable JSON under .vscode/searchlight-reviews/, created lazily on first mutation so clean repos stay clean. Durable thread ids and v1/v2 back-compat are preserved on every write.

Quick start

Build and install into your local VS Code from source:

# 1. Install dependencies and compile TypeScript -> out/
npm install
npm run compile

# 2. Package the extension into searchlight-0.0.1.vsix (gitignored)
npx @vscode/vsce package

# 3. Build + install into local VS Code in one step
pwsh -File scripts/deploy-local.ps1
#    (or reinstall the existing .vsix without rebuilding:)
pwsh -File scripts/deploy-local.ps1 -InstallOnly

Then run Developer: Reload Window in VS Code to pick up the build. Requires Node.js and the code CLI on PATH.

Tags

Classify a thread by typing / in the comment box and picking from the autocomplete:

/idea · /question · /bug · /change · /todo

(The full configurable set also includes /nit and /praise; edit searchlight.tags to customize.)

Documentation

Full knowledge base in docs/:

• architecture.md — ownership split, the four views, the CommentController, and the Ask-Copilot bridge.
• data-model.md — on-disk layout, the v2 schema, v1 back-compat, the tag set, and the durable seqCounter.
• engineering.md — build / package / deploy commands, VM verification, and commit conventions.

See DEMO.md for the repeatable demo path and how to capture the screenshot above.

License

MIT