Contributing to Open Pair

April 27, 2026 · View on GitHub

Setup

git clone https://github.com/darkerthanblack2000/open-pair
cd open-pair
npm install

Press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host.

Development workflow

npm run watch      # rebuild on save
npm run typecheck  # type-check without building
npm run lint       # ESLint
npm run format     # Prettier (writes in place)

All four must pass before opening a PR. CI runs them automatically.

Testing

There is no automated test suite yet. To test manually:

Launch the Extension Development Host (F5)
Open a folder in the host window
Run Open Pair: Start Hosting and copy the URL
Open a second VS Code window (or use Neovim with live-share.nvim) and join with the URL
Verify edits, cursors, and follow mode work in both directions

For Windows-specific behaviour, test file encoding (UTF-16 LE files are common on Windows).

Pull requests

One logical change per PR
Run npm run typecheck && npm run lint && npm run format:check locally before pushing
Describe what changed and why in the PR description
Keep commits focused; squash fixups before merging

Project structure

File	Purpose
`src/extension.ts`	Entry point, command registration, guest message handler
`src/session.ts`	Guest session state machine, auto-reconnect
`src/transport.ts`	WebSocket (masked) and raw TCP (4-byte LE prefix) transports
`src/protocol.ts`	JSON encode/decode + AES-256-GCM wrapper
`src/documents.ts`	Virtual filesystem (`liveshare://`), patch application
`src/cursors.ts`	Remote cursor and selection decorations
`src/peers.ts`	Peer tracker, QuickPick
`src/host.ts`	VS Code host: TCP server, approval flow, broadcast
`src/tunnel.ts`	SSH/ngrok tunnel management