Captain Stack — Code suggestion for VSCode

This feature is somewhat similar to Github Copilot's code suggestion. But instead of using AI, it sends your search query to Google, then retrieves StackOverflow and Github Gist answers and autocompletes them for you.

Table of contents:

Captain Stack — Code suggestion for VSCode

1. Install extension from the marketplace

You can search for "Captain Stack" on the VSCode Extension Marketplace, or use this link to install. Have questions? Join our Discord server

2. How to use

To trigger inline completion, you'll need to type //find {your keyword}. (start with //find, end with a dot .)

For example

//find binary search in javascript.

Make sure Inline Suggest is enabled from the VS Code Settings

Note: Use Alt+] and Alt+[ to move through suggestions

3. Installation for Development

Check out the installation video: https://youtu.be/MD-kzsF0Scg

To install and starting Captain Stack:

Clone this repository to your PC using git clone https://github.com/hieunc229/copilot-clone.git .. Please note there is a dot at the end of the command
Run npm install in the terminal to install dependencies
Now, you can start the extension. From the top menu, choose Run > Start Debugging.

This will:

Start a task npm: watch to compile the code and watch for changes
Open a new VSCode window (you should use the extension there)

Note: When you make changes, you should refresh that window to apply changes. To refresh, open Command Palette (Command+Shift+P on MacOS, or Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows), then choose "Developer: Reload window"

4. Captain Stack Configurations

There are a few configurations available for Captain Stack. To open the settings page:

Click on the Cog icon in the bottom left
Choose Settings
In the Search settings search box, enter "Captain Stack"

Available settings

sites allows to enable or disable a source site. By default, only Stackoverflow is enabled.
maxResults is the maximum number of results. It's 12 by default. Note: Since Captain Stack will fetch all the results from a page, the final number of results could be more than maxResults

5. Notes

There are more code sources that should be considered besides StackOverflow
If you see an unsupported error message, ignore it

Limits:

The extension uses fetch-node to get page content, and I don't know if there is any fetching limit
The extension uses querySelector to extract code and other info. There is a risk of either StackOverflow or Google changing its querySelector

If those factors became problems, the extension could be using their official APIs instead.

6. Changelog

Jul 02, 2022 — Officially published Captain Stack on the extension marketplace
Mar 22, 2022 — Added AI Code Validation
Aug 15, 2021 - Added sites and maxResults configurations
Jul 31, 2022 — Added GithubGist source
Jul 31, 2021 — Create code extracting abstracting to add more code sources
Jul 14, 2021 - Adapted to VS Code Insiders Release Version 1.59
Jul 01, 2021 - Added snippet source (thanks for mechero's suggestion)
Jun 30, 2021 - Publish the initial version

7. Troubleshooting

Common reasons why you can't run Captain Stack:

When pressing Run debugger, it shows different target options (nodejs, edge, etc.). Your VSCode root directory might be incorrect. Make sure your root directory is the folder in which the package.json file is.
Error message module "node-fetch" not found.... You need to run npm install.
canvas.node was compiled against a different Node.js. Try to remove canvas (npm uninstall canvas)

Still not running?

You haven't enabled the inline completion feature. To enable, set VSCode config "editor.inlineSuggest.enabled": true
It might conflict with some other plugins. You might need to disable plugins to check

If none of the above works, open a thread or join our Discord channel and have a chat.

8. Contributors

The plugin is available, thanks to:

Feel free to open a thread for feedback or discussion. And have fun!

Love Captain Stack? Check out other things I do:

freddymu/copilot-clone