cnpg4vscode

A VS Code extension for working with CloudNativePG PostgreSQL clusters on Kubernetes — browse clusters from your kubeconfig, run SQL against them in native VS Code notebooks, navigate schemas with rich actions, and visualize relationships with ER diagrams. No kubectl shell-outs, no credential persistence to disk, native VS Code surfaces throughout.

Status: Live on the VS Code Marketplace. Install with code --install-extension Irulast.cnpg4vscode or search "CloudNativePG" in the Extensions view. The full feature set across spec 001's six user stories is implemented end-to-end and spec 002's CI/CD pipeline ships releases automatically from tag pushes.

Features

Cluster discovery — every cluster your kubeconfig can see

The CNPG activity-bar view lists every Kubernetes context in your kubeconfig and every CloudNativePG Cluster resource visible inside each. Status icons reflect the operator-reported phase (healthy / setting up / failing). Errors per context surface verbatim (RBAC denial, network failure, CNPG not installed) without breaking sibling contexts.

One-click connect — credential picker → port-forward → SQL notebook

Click any cluster in the tree to:

1. Open a port-forward tunnel to the cluster's primary read/write service (via the official @kubernetes/client-node SPDY API — no kubectl shell-out).
2. Pick a credential from the CNPG-issued Secrets in the cluster's namespace; <cluster>-app is pre-selected as the safe default.
3. Open a cnpg-sql notebook with a controller bound to the new connection. Cells run via Shift+Enter; results render in an interactive table beneath each cell.

Connections are idempotent — clicking a cluster you're already connected to opens a fresh notebook bound to the existing controller without re-tunneling.

Read-only by default — two-tier write protection

Every connection opens in read-only mode. A two-layer gate prevents accidental writes:

• Client-side: a SQL keyword allowlist rejects statements before they leave your editor. SELECT / EXPLAIN / SHOW / WITH (read-only) pass; anything else is rejected with a clear message naming the read-only restriction.
• Server-side: every cell runs inside a BEGIN; SET LOCAL transaction_read_only = on; … ; ROLLBACK; wrapper, so the PostgreSQL server itself refuses writes — even if the client gate is bypassed somehow.

Toggle into Write mode per-connection via the status-bar action menu. Mode never persists across VS Code restarts.

Schema tree — lazy navigation with per-node actions

Under each connected database, browse schemas, tables, views, materialized views, indexes, sequences, functions, triggers, types, extensions, and roles — all lazy-loaded with a 60-second cache. Per-node actions:

• Browse Rows / Count Rows — append a SELECT cell to the active notebook and execute.
• Open Definition — DDL via pg_get_viewdef / pg_get_functiondef / pg_get_indexdef / pg_get_constraintdef; tables are reconstructed from pg_attribute + pg_constraint.
• Copy Fully-Qualified Name — schema-qualified identifier to the clipboard.
• Generate INSERT Template — parameterized INSERT cell ready to fill in.

In Write mode, additional destructive actions appear:

• DROP / TRUNCATE / REINDEX / Scaffold ALTER — each gated by a typed-name confirmation modal (you must type the fully-qualified target name exactly to proceed).

Grid Editor — DB-IDE-parity cell editing

Right-click any table in the schema tree → Open in Grid Editor to open a dedicated tab with a canvas-rendered virtualized grid:

• Browse, sort, filter — sticky header, per-column sort + filter glyphs, full filter DSL (=, ≠, <, LIKE, IS NULL, …).
• Edit cells with a per-PG-type editor (text / number / boolean / date / jsonb popout / enum dropdown). Edits buffer dirty; Apply previews every parameterized UPDATE before running. Per-row results stream in.
• FK navigation — right-click an FK cell to jump to the referenced row in a new pre-filtered tab.
• Export the current filter to CSV, JSON, or runnable SQL INSERTs. Every emitted statement passes through the same credential-redaction chokepoint as logs.
• Layout + tab hibernation — column widths, sort, filters persist per (cluster, database, schema, table). Tabs reopen with VS Code workspace restore.

The read-only gate still applies — Write mode is required for editing, and views / materialized views / tables without a PK stay read-only.

ER diagram — Mermaid in markdown preview

Right-click a database or schema in the Schema view → CNPG: Show ER Diagram → a markdown document opens with a Mermaid erDiagram showing tables, columns (with type, PK markers) and foreign-key relationships. Renders inline via the VS Code markdown preview.

Requires the Markdown Preview Mermaid Support extension (declared as an extension dependency — pulled in automatically by Marketplace installs).

Notebook → cluster organization

Save notebooks scoped to the cluster they were written against:

• Status-bar action menu → Save notebook to cluster... → writes to ${workspaceRoot}/.cnpg/notebooks/<context>/<namespace>/<cluster>/<name>.cnpg-sql.
• The Clusters tree shows saved notebooks as expandable children under their cluster row; click to reopen.
• Files live in your workspace, version-controllable, visible in the standard Explorer.

Diagnostic-friendly logging

A dedicated cnpg4vscode output channel captures every cluster query, tunnel state transition, and notebook execution as human-readable KV lines. Every line passes through a redaction chokepoint — credential literals (PASSWORD '...', Bearer ..., libpq URLs with embedded passwords, PEM blocks, plpgsql function bodies, etc.) are stripped before write.

CNPG: Report a Problem assembles the last 200 redacted log lines plus environment info (VS Code version, extension version, platform, Node version, active connection / tunnel counts) into a Markdown document ready to paste into a support thread.

Native VS Code surfaces

Most surfaces are native — the only webview is the Grid Editor, opened on demand when you right-click a table:

• Clusters / Schema — native TreeViews.
• SQL console — native VS Code Notebook (cnpg-sql).
• Inline result grid — native NotebookRendererProvider.
• Grid Editor (on demand) — canvas-rendered virtualized webview with CSP locked to default-src 'none', no external CDNs, no unsafe-eval. Theme-aware via --vscode-* variables.
• Cluster details — markdown preview.
• ER diagram — markdown preview (Mermaid via bierner.markdown-mermaid).
• Status bar — native VS Code status bar with action menu.

Theme-aware throughout (light, dark, high-contrast). Snippets for PG included for postgres and sql languages.

Install

From the Marketplace (recommended once a release is published):

code --install-extension Irulast.cnpg4vscode

Or search "CloudNativePG" in the Extensions view inside VS Code.

From a GitHub Release (sideload — useful in air-gapped environments or for testing pre-release builds):

1. Visit the Releases page and download the VSIX matching your platform (cnpg4vscode-<platform>-<version>.vsix).
2. code --install-extension <file>.vsix

From source (for development):

git clone https://github.com/irulast/cnpg4vscode.git
cd cnpg4vscode
pnpm install
pnpm build

Then press F5 in VS Code (with the cnpg4vscode folder open) to launch the Extension Development Host.

Quickstart

See docs/quickstart.md for a step-by-step walk-through against a local kind cluster with CloudNativePG installed.

For feature walk-throughs (each major feature, with screenshots placeholders), see docs/features.md.

For dev-environment setup (running tests, the spec-kit workflow), see specs/001-cnpg-cluster-explorer/quickstart.md.

Roadmap

Release	Adds	Status
0.1.0	Cluster discovery, details, auto-refresh	landed
0.2.0	Connect & run SQL in notebooks, read-only gate, status bar	landed
0.3.0	Schema tree, per-node actions, typed-name confirmation	landed
0.4.0	Notebook result-grid renderer, per-cluster notebook organization, ER diagram, snippets, report-problem	landed
0.5.0	Cell editing (UPDATE/DELETE from the grid), saved-query history, full-featured Grid Editor (canvas grid + per-PG-type editors + bulk Apply + FK navigation + export)	landed
0.6.0	Visual index / constraint editors, migration wizard, per-platform packaging (scripts/package.mjs)	landed
0.7.0	Automated CI/CD via GitHub Actions — every PR gated by typecheck + lint + tests + build + audits + security scan; tag → Marketplace publish (stable + pre-release channels) + GitHub Release with per-platform VSIXs	landed
1.0.0	First public Marketplace release — Irulast.cnpg4vscode (six per-platform VSIXs).	landed (2026-05-17)
1.1.0	e2e test harness (@vscode/test-electron + testcontainers); performance budget enforcement (spec 001's blocked tasks)	planned

Releases are automated via GitHub Actions on the standard GitHub-hosted runner pool — see docs/release-process.md for the maintainer runbook (bump → merge → push tag; the workflow handles the rest).

Security

• Credentials never persisted: kubeconfig contents, Secret material, decoded database passwords, and live query results stay in process memory only. SQL source code in notebooks IS persisted (via standard Ctrl+S), but always passes through the redaction chokepoint first so credential literals don't reach disk.
• Read-only by default: every connection opens in read-only mode; switching to write requires an explicit modal confirmation.
• Destructive operations gated: DROP / TRUNCATE / REINDEX require the user to type the fully-qualified target name in the confirmation modal.
• No telemetry: the extension never collects usage analytics. The only outbound network traffic is to your kubeconfig-configured Kubernetes API servers and the PostgreSQL instances you connect to.
• No remote-code execution: the extension does not eval user-supplied YAML, does not shell out to kubectl, and does not load any JavaScript from external CDNs.

Governance

This project is governed by .specify/memory/constitution.md (v1.0.0). Notable principles:

• VS Code UX consistency — native surfaces by default.
• Kubernetes-native integration — via @kubernetes/client-node, never kubectl.
• Test-first development (non-negotiable).
• Observability with no default telemetry.
• Simplicity and YAGNI.

Feature specs live under specs/:

• 001-cnpg-cluster-explorer/ — the foundational extension (clusters, schemas, notebooks, Grid Editor, ER diagrams, migration wizard).
• 002-github-actions-deploy/ — the automated CI/CD pipeline (self-hosted runners, tag-triggered Marketplace publish, partial-failure recovery).

Contributing

Patches welcome. See specs/001-cnpg-cluster-explorer/quickstart.md for the dev environment setup. The repo follows the Spec Kit workflow — new features go through /speckit-specify → /speckit-plan → /speckit-tasks → /speckit-implement.

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE and THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.