Linked folders or kodeo:// in VS Code?

KODEO for VS Code opens a project one of two ways. Both are live in the room; they differ in where the files are.

Straight from KODEO (kodeo://)

The window's address is kodeo://workspace/project. Nothing is downloaded up front:

• the file tree comes from one request, however big the project is;
• a file's contents arrive when you open it, and are cached so a file you've seen costs nothing again;
• files you have open are live — every keystroke goes to the room;
• saving any other file is a version-checked save: if it changed on KODEO first, you're shown both versions instead of overwriting;
• deleting goes to KODEO's trash (7 days), like in the browser.

It's the only way on vscode.dev and github.dev, and the quickest way to look at or fix something.

VS Code's own search and Quick Open can't see inside a kodeo:// window, so KODEO takes over those keys there: Ctrl+P / ⌘P is KODEO: Go to File… and Ctrl+Shift+F / ⌘⇧F is KODEO: Search in Project…. Tasks, debuggers and some language servers need files on a real disk — for those, clone the project into a linked folder (or use KODEO: Run in KODEO).

A linked folder

KODEO: Clone Project into a Folder… puts the project in a real folder — the same folder kodeo clone makes (its link and state live in .kodeo/local/, and a starter .kodeoignore keeps build output on your computer).

• files you have open are live in the room, just like kodeo://; saving writes the room's text to disk;
• any other change — a save, a git checkout, a formatter, npm install touching a tracked file — is sent to KODEO a moment later, all or nothing, with only new content uploaded;
• teammates' changes to files you don't have open arrive on their own. If you both changed the same lines of a file that wasn't open, you get conflict markers, and the status bar counts them until you resolve and save;
• secret-looking files (.env, keys) ask before their first push;
• your terminal, tests and dev servers run on your computer — privately, using no runtime hours.

The folder works with the kodeo CLI too: kodeo status in a terminal and the extension always agree.

If a linked folder was cloned with git clone from git.kodeo.website (so it has its own .git), VS Code's built-in Git keeps the Source Control view and the extension leaves it alone.

Which opens?

When a KODEO link opens a project, the extension uses this computer's linked folder if it has one, and kodeo:// otherwise. Change that with the KODEO: Open Links In setting (linked, remote or ask).

In KODEO, Settings → Local access → Open code links in chooses which editor links open in at all — VS Code, Insiders, Cursor, Windsurf, VSCodium, vscode.dev or the browser.