Toucan 1.1.0

Toucan 1.1.0 moves the optional sidebar block into the Explorer, where it no longer needs a bar of its own.

What's new

• The sidebar block lives in the Explorer. It used to sit in the secondary sidebar; now it's a section of the Explorer, below the folder tree. In a workspace where the block was already on, it first shows as a collapsed Toucan header at the bottom: open it once and VS Code remembers. When you turn toucan.sidebarBlock.enabled on while the window runs, Toucan opens it for you, once, in the window you're working in (switching the sidebar to the Explorer if it showed Search or Source Control). Otherwise Toucan never switches the sidebar's view and never re-opens a block you collapsed. You can drag the block anywhere, to the top of the Explorer say, and VS Code remembers the place. (#37)
• Hiding is simple. Hide from the block's … menu, or Toucan: Toggle Sidebar Block, hides it, and it stays hidden in this workspace until you run Toggle Sidebar Block again, which also opens a block that is merely collapsed. Collapsing it, showing another view or hiding the sidebar never hides it for good. (#37)
• The unfocused mode is gone. toucan.sidebarBlock.visibility and a repository's sidebarBlock field are deprecated and ignored; the block is shown while it's on, until you hide it. A leftover value does nothing, and the settings will be removed in a later release. (#37)

After updating

If the secondary sidebar was showing the block when you updated, it may stay open and empty once: close it with the bar's ×. If you had closed the old block before, it shows again in the Explorer: hide it once with Hide if you don't want it.

Behind the scenes

For contributors; the extension works the same.

• ADR-0016: Toucan targets VS Code only; other editors may install the VSIX from the GitHub releases, with best-effort support. (#35)
• The website links Toucan on the Marketplace and shows the 1.0.0 changelog. (#34, #36)

The version bump is #38.

Install

From the Marketplace: in VS Code, open the Extensions view and search for Toucan, or run code --install-extension marco-daniel.toucan.

Or download toucan-1.1.0.vsix below, then either:

• in VS Code: Extensions view → … → Install from VSIX…, or
• from a terminal: code --install-extension toucan-1.1.0.vsix

Installing over 1.0.0 keeps your settings.

SHA-256: 9243e450d454173e956686b80388484f51c3d695833495d60ee495ce398136a3

To check the download was built by this repository's release workflow:

gh attestation verify toucan-1.1.0.vsix --repo Marco-Daniel/Toucan

Good to know

• Toucan is a VS Code extension; Cursor, VSCodium and Windsurf aren't supported (see ADR-0016 in the repository), though their users may install the VSIX above where their VS Code base is recent enough.
• v1.0.0 and earlier are still available.

The full review history of each change is in its PR.

🤖 MarcoGPT

Toucan 1.0.0

Toucan 1.0.0 is on the Visual Studio Marketplace. It works as 0.0.4 did; from now on, every release reaches the Marketplace as exactly the file attached here.

What's new

• On the Marketplace. Install Toucan from the Extensions view: search for Toucan. Updates now arrive like any other extension's. The store page has the full feature tour and this changelog. (#31)
• The preset contrast warning sits on the preset's own line. In Pick Preset Color, a preset that's hard to see on the status bar now says so after its hex, instead of in a second row: every preset is one row. (#15)
• Every feature, shown. The README walks through each feature with screenshots taken from the real extension. (#14)
• A website. toucan-vscode.netlify.app has the tour, the docs and the changelog. (#21)

Behind the scenes

For contributors; the extension works the same.

Releases and security

• Releases are built and signed by GitHub Actions. Each release's VSIX comes with a build attestation, and the Marketplace gets that same file, verified first. A one-off check confirmed the identity GitHub would present for automatic publishing, for when that's switched on. (#30, #31, #32)
• A security policy says how to report a vulnerability privately. (#17)
• Dependencies are watched. A weekly audit checks the npm dependencies for known vulnerabilities, and pnpm's supply-chain checks refuse a package version published with less trust than its earlier ones, a version younger than a day, and an indirect dependency from git or a tarball. (#18, #22)
• A code-scanning warning is fixed at its source: the README screenshot script passes values to VS Code as arguments, never as part of the code it runs. (#27)

The website

• The phone menu is a menu button at the far right, next to Install. (#24)
• A strict Content-Security-Policy: the site runs only its own scripts and styles. (#26)
• Its screenshot check stops only the browser it started, and its docs are clearer. (#23)

The repository

• One repository, several packages: the extension, the website and the shared brand (colors, presets, glyphs, icon) each have their own folder and checks. (#19, #20)
• Tests clean up after themselves, and a test run fails if one leaves a temporary folder behind. (#29)
• Mutation testing always runs in full, so no result is reused from an earlier run. (#25)

The version bump is #33.

Install

From the Marketplace: in VS Code, open the Extensions view and search for Toucan, or run code --install-extension marco-daniel.toucan.

Or download toucan-1.0.0.vsix below, then either:

• in VS Code: Extensions view → … → Install from VSIX…, or
• from a terminal: code --install-extension toucan-1.0.0.vsix

Installing over 0.0.4 keeps your settings.

SHA-256: 6e19ad5b004488b50cdfb42818c4f9a5e25c1b0a062d7f571adb5a5daede98cf

To check the download was built by this repository's release workflow:

gh attestation verify toucan-1.0.0.vsix --repo Marco-Daniel/Toucan

Good to know

• Toucan targets VS Code; other VS Code-based editors can try the VSIX from this release, with best-effort support (ADR-0016).
• v0.0.4 and earlier are still available.

The full review history of each change is in its PR.

🤖 MarcoGPT

Toucan 0.0.4

Toucan 0.0.4 fixes four rough edges around clearing colors, the sidebar and the experimental search emoji.

Fixed

• Clear Color leaves no empty settings behind. When clearing a repo's color empties workbench.colorCustomizations, Toucan now removes the setting instead of leaving an empty {}. (#12)
• The secondary sidebar closes when Toucan's block goes away, for example when the repo loses its color, but only if Toucan opened it. A sidebar you opened yourself, with Chat or other views, stays open. (#12)
• The search emoji works without an open file. With no editor open, the search bar reads "🟦 webshop" instead of "🟦 — webshop". (#12)
• Disabling or uninstalling Toucan with the search emoji on no longer breaks your window title. The emoji now uses Toucan's own title variables, which stay empty when Toucan isn't running, so there's no doubled name and no need to turn the emoji off first. If your own window.title uses ${activeRepositoryName}, it shows source control's repository name again, as without Toucan. (#12)

The version bump is #13.

Install

Download toucan-0.0.4.vsix below, then either:

• in VS Code: Extensions view → … → Install from VSIX…, or
• from a terminal: code --install-extension toucan-0.0.4.vsix

Installing over 0.0.3 keeps your settings. If you use the search emoji, Toucan updates the title it added to your window.title the next time the emoji shows.

SHA-256: b139e00ef4d07559000a57c7237c4c9804e6c71152cc6399ab112511f69377d5

Good to know

• Not on the Marketplace yet.
• v0.0.3, v0.0.2 and v0.0.1 are still available.

The full review history of each change is in its PR.

🤖 MarcoGPT

Toucan 0.0.3

Toucan 0.0.3 is a maintenance release. It works the same as 0.0.2, and a failure that used to go unnoticed is now logged.

What's new

• Failures are logged. When work Toucan runs in the background fails, it now writes the error to its log instead of dropping it. Open it with Output → Toucan. (#9)

Changed

Behind the scenes, for contributors:

• Rules and decisions in one place. The project's architecture decisions now live in an ADR log (docs/adr/), a test checks the log and every ADR the code cites, and the agent instructions are rewritten as short rules with pointers. Lint is type-aware with no warnings allowed, and a pre-push hook runs the checks. Docs search uses qmd with Toucan's own index. (#7)
• A layout where the path tells you what a file is: src/core/, src/shared/<topic>/ and src/features/<feature>/, with role suffixes. (#8)
• Upkeep: errors are caught through one tryCatch helper, functions take one object argument, shared helpers replace duplicated code, imports are grouped under headers, and mutation testing with StrykerJS runs on demand (pnpm mutate). (#9)
• A /docs-sync skill that finds documentation drift since its last run and proposes a fix for each item. (#10)
• The version bump is #11.

Install

Download toucan-0.0.3.vsix below, then either:

• in VS Code: Extensions view → … → Install from VSIX…, or
• from a terminal: code --install-extension toucan-0.0.3.vsix

Installing over 0.0.2 keeps your settings.

SHA-256: 45f3ddfd54922271f9f0bea9f4cd807610ba7dd9adc3f5a82b92467fdd8e8591

Good to know

• Not on the Marketplace yet.
• v0.0.2 and v0.0.1 are still available.

The full review history of each change is in its PR. The maintenance run's plan and decisions are in docs/plans/architecture-maintenance, and the docs-sync skill's in docs/plans/docs-sync.

🤖 MarcoGPT

Toucan 0.0.2

Toucan 0.0.2 gives the extension its own icon and a hand-drawn glyph set.

What's new

• Extension icon and gallery banner. The Toucan logo is now the extension's icon in VS Code's Extensions view, with a matching dark green banner. (#3)

• 17 glyphs in Toucan's own style. Every glyph is drawn in Toucan's own icon font: polygonal, with softened corners, filled, with the holes cut out. Set Glyph shows them in four groups. (#4)

  Group	Glyphs
  Shapes	square, bar, pill, circle
  Toucan's world	toucan, sun, leaf, drop, moon
  Characters	alien, ghost, robot, cat
  Fun & dev	bolt, heart, star, rocket

• The search bar emoji follows the glyph's shape: circles for circle, hearts for heart, and squares for the rest.

Changed

• double-circle and check-circle are gone. A repo still set to either shows as square, with a warning, so pick a new glyph with Toucan: Set Glyph.
• Behind the scenes:
  • the workflow actions moved to their current major versions (#2)
  • CI and the release build share one check that every generated file (glyph font, icon, generated code) is up to date
  • the version bump is #5

Install

Download toucan-0.0.2.vsix below, then either:

• in VS Code: Extensions view → … → Install from VSIX…, or
• from a terminal: code --install-extension toucan-0.0.2.vsix

Installing over 0.0.1 keeps your settings.

SHA-256: 076b01a359e2d7534b544697ddc7f6646279c613547366da7cc60757941fc11e

Good to know

• Not on the Marketplace yet.
• v0.0.1 is still available.

The full review history of each change is in its PR. The glyph set's design and decisions are in docs/plans/glyph-set.

🤖 MarcoGPT

Toucan 0.0.1

The first release of Toucan: see at a glance which repository a VS Code window has open, without writing anything into the repo.

What's in it

• Command Center color in the focused window, from user settings keyed by folder name. Missing colors (text, hover, border, inactive) are derived from the background.
• Status bar indicator in every window, focused or not: the repo's glyph and name in its color.
• Commands: Set Color, Pick Preset Color (16 toucan-themed presets), Set Glyph (8 shapes), Clear Color and Toggle Sidebar Block. Colors that may be hard to see on the status bar get a warning.
• Opt-in sidebar color block (always visible, or only when the window loses focus), and an experimental search bar emoji, which asks before changing window.title.
• Comments survive: Toucan edits only its own keys in settings.json when that's provably safe, and otherwise falls back to VS Code's own write.
• Works in Restricted Mode and in remote windows. Repo-provided text never reaches notifications.

Install

Download toucan-0.0.1.vsix below, then either:

• in VS Code: Extensions view → … → Install from VSIX…, or
• from a terminal: code --install-extension toucan-0.0.1.vsix

Then run Toucan: Pick Preset Color in a repo.

SHA-256: 1c67b8ce800dc13cd07acdb9dd73a86a5aeead61f429ecadccbd6d6ccfb51c2d

Good to know

• Unfocused windows don't keep the Command Center color, because VS Code applies user-level colors to every window. The status bar indicator (and the optional sidebar block) mark them instead.
• VS Code's default compact Agents control hides the Command Center background. Toucan offers once to switch it to badge.
• Not on the Marketplace yet.

The full design and every decision are in docs/plans/toucan-v1. The review history is in #1 and #2.

🤖 MarcoGPT