Hi all, recently the julia-vscode devs added the ability for VSCode Copilot to run code in the integrated Julia REPL. I made a small addon extension which also lets all the other agentic tools like the native Claude/Codex VSCode extensions (or their TUI / desktop counterparts entirely outside of VSCode for that matter) drive your integrated Julia REPL via MCP.
I’ve found the whole integrated terminal thing pretty awesome, since the agent can just iterate in the running terminal, inspecting variables, tweaking code, etc… its so much faster than it only being able to run one-off Julia commands via bash like it currently does. If you do agentic coding, I highly recommend trying this out (with this extension if you need it, or just the Copilot support already built into the official extension / Kaimon / julia-mcp, etc…).
Yea, see the discussion starting here, basically we just don’t know yet from upstream what the “right way” to do this is (and may not for a while), until then this extension is a stopgap, ideally it won’t be needed in the future.
I actually wonder if there’s a way to get best of both worlds? Ie, when in vscode → AI uses VSCode REPL, like this extension does; when standalone → AI uses julia-mcp.
Its def doable in practice, basically the lock-file architecture of my package and when the right VSCode window isn’t found it calls out to your package, it might be worth thinking about. My guess is there exists some user that would want pretty much all possible combinations though. Like I myself at least once did VSCode REPL driven by a terminal Codex in another window on the side, sometimes I’m in the mood for a TUI. I suppose keeping them separate MCPs allows users to optionally install one or the other in a given project. But there’d definitely be value in the predictability of single set of tools and instructions. Not sure the right direction, but that’s what comes to mind.
That’s not always convenient – eg, I sometimes run AI in vscode window, sometimes standalone, in the same project. I don’t know what a good solution for this is, but would be great to have one
Also, a question about your mcp server: how does it handle two+ claude/codex sessions in the same vscode window?
They share the single integrated REPL within a given window.
I’ve seen it, looks very powerful! The approach here is the other end of the spectrum, simplest possible setup and only focused on the VSCode integrated Julia REPL and the AI tools it comes with.
