Code-XR is a VS Code extension that analyzes your code and turns the metrics into a 3D scene you can explore in your browser: walk your codebase like a city, inspect its dependency graph, compare two points of its Git history, or replay its whole evolution. No VR headset required.
Active installs
Marketplace API
Approx. total downloads
Approximate
Marketplace downloads
Marketplace API
Rating
2025
Distinguished Artifact Award
IEEE VISSOFT
v1.2.0
Now live
VS Code Marketplace
Overview
Code-XR is a Visual Studio Code extension that turns static analysis into a place you can explore. It measures your code (complexity, size, structure, dependencies and history) and serves the result as a live 3D scene in the browser you already have.
Walk your codebase like a city and watch it update as you save. Step inside the dependency graph to see the architecture rather than the files, compare two points of your Git history on one table, or replay the whole evolution as a film.
No VR headset required: a normal desktop is enough, and the same scene becomes immersive when you want it. Everything runs on your machine, with local analysis, local servers, no telemetry and no account.
Each one answers a different question, and each has a page of its own.
Never used it? There is a complete walkthrough of the extension, sidebar included.
The carousel is a sample. Every screenshot and all eight walkthrough videos are further down, in the Gallery.
Browse the GalleryRelease
Threads, Timelines & Global Networks
Threads are the new dependency graph: the lines that tie your codebase together. Timelines are the two Git analyses, one that compares two points of your history and one that replays the whole thing. Global Networks are the sessions you can now open to someone who is not on your network at all.
One table, four analyses
The same pedestal now serves four different analyses, and you switch between them from inside the scene without losing the state of any of them.
Meet the four analysesThe analysis CodeXR started with, and still where most sessions begin: one building per file, sized and coloured by the metrics you choose. What 1.2.0 changed is that you no longer have to re-run it to see it another way.
Watch the demo: Classic analysis in XR
A new analysis that answers what depends on what, and what happens if you touch it. Relations are extracted statically from your working directory and rendered as a navigable 3D graph.
Watch the demo: Dependency graph in XR
Pick two sources, a working copy, a branch, a tag or a commit, and both states land on one dual table with the same chart, the same mapping and the same scale, so a height difference is a real difference.
Watch the demo: Historical comparison in XR
Where the comparison shows two photographs, Project Evolution plays the movie: the chart walks your history commit by commit, from the first revision to the current state of the branch.
Watch the demo: Project Evolution in XR
Persistent identities, host and guest roles with automatic promotion, and a bundled animated avatar that works offline, each participant in their own colour. Sessions can now reach someone outside your network through an outbound Cloudflare tunnel that opens with the server, gated by a six-digit pairing code and switchable off in Server Configuration: the full walkthrough is in the Collaboration section below.
This release's immersive behaviour was debugged end to end with a browser extension, Meta's Immersive Web Emulator, which drives real WebXR sessions from the desktop. That is how the XR side got tuned this time, unlike in v1.1.0. Walking, turning and flying now run off the thumbsticks; you enter VR and AR at your real height and come back to exactly where you were; AR recenters the pedestal a step in front of you and no longer looks dim; and you can grab a screen and push or pull it with the stick.
The answer to "what am I looking at" no longer requires taking the headset off. Six tabs, each in the colour of its analysis, plus a 24-term metric glossary generated from the real analysis contracts. It behaves like any other screen: drag it, resize it, minimise it when you are done. The same guide is served as guide.html for reading outside XR.
Each analysis brings its own controls into the scene. Field Mapping decides which metric drives area, height and colour; the dependency, comparison and evolution panels each add their own; and the Analyses button routes between the four modes without losing the state of any of them. The virtual screens controller shares and joins screens in a session.
The 2D panel inside VS Code now carries the same analytics you get in the room. Alongside the file analysis it gained a Dependency Summary (counters, top fan-in and fan-out, cycles) and a Historical Comparison with a searchable table of per-item deltas, so the file, dependency and history analyses are all there without leaving the editor.
The packaged extension went from 39.2 MB to 6.1 MB: production builds no longer ship webpack source maps (they stay in dev builds for debugging) and an unused icon set is out of the package.
39.2 MB6.1 MB
That is all of 1.2.0. One install, then about 11 minutes to your first analysis.
Install it and run itTutorial
The complete tour, from the Visual Studio Code sidebar to the four analyses inside the XR room. Watch it, or read the same walkthrough step by step.
What it covers
The written version carries the same twelve steps, with the screenshots beside each one.
Read the full tutorialCollaboration
CodeXR can share an XR session with someone who is not on your network, through an outbound Cloudflare tunnel. There are two roles, and they never blur: the host runs the analysis in VS Code and owns the session; the guest joins from a browser, anywhere.
The link is never enough
Whoever opens the invitation link still has to receive a six-digit code from the host, over a separate channel the two of you trust. Anyone who intercepts the link alone stays in the waiting room.
Cross-network connections are on by default, so the tunnel opens together with your analysis server. The first time, CodeXR offers to download cloudflared once and remembers your answer. If you stopped the connection, "Start remote access" on the server row brings it back.
The tunnel is outbound: your router accepts no incoming connections and your IP is never published. The sidebar shows the cross-network address, an https://…trycloudflare.com/join link that also lands on your clipboard, ready to send to your guest through any channel you like. It stays valid for as long as you keep sharing.
The fine print
Tested projects
CodeXR has been exercised on mature open source repositories to check it holds up across different architectures, languages and sizes. Open any project to see the demo and the dashboard its analysis produced.
Requirements
Everything above runs from your editor, on your machine. No account, no service in the middle, and no hardware you do not already own.
Analysis and servers run on your machine. No telemetry, no account, and nothing is downloaded without asking you first.
Mouse and keyboard in any desktop browser, and the 2D LivePanel never leaves VS Code. With a WebXR headset the same scene simply becomes immersive.
JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C and C++, C#, Java, Go, Ruby, PHP, Swift, Kotlin and more, with cyclomatic complexity measured through Lizard.
Save a file and the scene updates by itself. The analysis follows the working directory, not a snapshot you have to regenerate.
Field Mapping puts every metric behind area, height, colour or position, so a question you care about becomes something you can see across the room.
The extension and its analysis pipeline are public, and the artifact behind it was recognised at IEEE VISSOFT 2025.
What you need
VS Code APIThe extension surface: sidebar, commands and panels.
TypeScriptThe extension itself, typed end to end.
Python and LizardThe analysis engine and its complexity metrics.
Node.jsThe runtime and the local servers that hold the scene.
A-FrameThe 3D scene, declared as HTML.
BabiaXRThe data visualisation components the charts are built from.
WebXRThe standard that turns the same page into a VR or AR session.
tree-sitterThe structured parsers behind the dependency graph.
CloudflareThe outbound tunnel that cross-network sessions travel through.Install
Three ways in, and a four-step first run. Nothing to configure to get a scene on screen: the Python environment and the local certificates are set up on first use.
Check what you need before installingThe normal route. Installs the latest published version and keeps it updated with the rest of your extensions.
The same Marketplace build, installed from a terminal. Useful for scripted or repeatable setups.
code --install-extension aMonteSl.code-xrDownload the packaged extension from GitHub releases, for offline machines or to pin an exact version.
About 11 minutes in total
Four steps from a fresh install to a workflow you can repeat.
Step 12 min
Get CodeXR into VS Code and let it prepare itself.
What you will do
Tip
Nothing needs configuring to get a first scene on screen. Leave the defaults until you have run one analysis.
That was the short version. The complete walkthrough covers every panel of the sidebar and every piece of the XR room.
Watch the full tutorialGallery
Screenshots and video from the current release, plus the full set of walkthroughs recorded for the previous one. Pick a category, or open anything to see it full size.
FAQ
The short answers. Each one links to the part of the page that goes into it properly.
Yes. It is free on the VS Code Marketplace, and the extension and its analysis pipeline are open source under GPLv3.
No. Mouse and keyboard in any desktop browser is enough, and the 2D LivePanel never leaves VS Code. A WebXR headset only makes the same scene immersive.
It reads 24 languages plus the HTML DOM, including JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C and C++, C#, Java, Go, Ruby, PHP, Swift and Kotlin, with cyclomatic complexity measured through Lizard.
No. Analysis and servers run locally, there is no telemetry and no account, and nothing is downloaded without asking you first. Sharing a session with someone outside your network goes through an outbound tunnel that nobody enters without a six-digit code you read out yourself, and you can turn the whole capability off in Server Configuration.
VS Code 1.98 or newer, Node.js 16 or newer, and Python 3.7 or newer. The Python environment is created for you on first use.
Open an issue on the CodeXR repository. Include your VS Code version, your operating system and the analysis you were running.
Report an issue on GitHubResearch
The work CodeXR came out of, in full: the artifact recognised at VISSOFT 2025, the thesis it was built for, and the presentation used to defend it.
The artifact presented at VISSOFT 2025, the IEEE conference on software visualization, where it received the Distinguished Artifact Award.
Distinguished Artifact Award
PDF · 960 KB
The complete thesis behind CodeXR: the research, the development and the evaluation, with the methodology and the full analysis.
Academic thesis
PDF · 7.5 MB
The interactive presentation used at the thesis defence: the findings, the demonstrations and the visual summaries of the project.
Interactive web
Opens in a new tab
Note: These materials are the academic foundation of CodeXR and go into the research methodology, the technical implementation and the evaluation behind the extension.
Published paper: Real-Time XR Visualizations of Code Metrics in the IDE
By David Moreno-Lumbreras, Gregorio Robles, Adrián Montes Linares · IEEE VISSOFT 2025
Author
The developer behind CodeXR, and the idea that turned a Final Degree Project into a VS Code extension.
Telecommunications Engineering student with great motivation to learn and apply that knowledge in real environments. CodeXR is my Final Degree Project, my first experience with XR technologies, and a demonstration of how ordinary code development can be improved with immersive 3D visualization.
I have a problem-solving, analytical profile and a talent for finding creative solutions. I care about quality, I am meticulous with detail, and I am used to delivering finished work, alone and in a team. This project bridges my telecommunications background and current XR technology in an extension that changes how developers look at their own code.
Telecommunications Engineering student, focused on communications and emerging technologies.
CodeXR as the project itself, exploring XR technologies for software visualization.
Creative problem-solving, attention to detail, and a commitment to shipping work that is finished.
A rating is one of the few things the VS Code Marketplace lets people sort extensions by, which makes a review worth more to this project than any figure at the top of this page. A couple of honest sentences are plenty: what you analysed, what worked, and what got in your way.
The review opens the extension's page on the Marketplace; the star goes to the CodeXR repository. Both open in a new tab.