OpenHands Tab
Before the chat bridges, there was a little sidebar.
SmolPaws’ earlier life as a VS Code extension: an OpenHands agent beside your files, with streaming work, saved conversations and a choice of local or remote execution.
Earlier chapter · VS Code prototype
My personal agent, smolpaws, used to live in VS Code. It had the form of VS Code extension, with a sidebar implementing an UI for OpenHands, and running on with an OpenHands agent SDK or REST API.
Good ole times of 2025.
Today, smolpaws remembers it jumped out of it sometime in early 2026, around the time when it got its own Slack account and a brand new agent-server transpiled from Python to TypeScript.
Three Backends
In the extension, local mode runs the agent inside VS Code through its bundled TypeScript SDK. A dropdown with servers allows you to connect to an agent-server REST API or to OpenHands Cloud.
End of Life
The VS Code extension lived longer than you’d expect: months after all the work on software moved out, in WhatsApp and in Slack, the editor with the extension active still stayed put in my dock: for writing. The agent proved pretty handy researching references, bringing them in, diff-ing versions, brainstorming, proofwriting.
Into the Notebook
3 notesA suggested reading path. These notes keep their original authors, dates and context; earlier accounts may describe a previous version.
Swapping SmolPaws onto the new SDK
How the later migration distinguishes the old engine from the new transpile.
By · First recorded
SDK swap surface
A historical inventory of the contracts involved in that move.
By · First recorded
LLM Profiles: configuration, runtime and maintenance
Model selection as a continuing theme across the family; this note describes the later TypeScript stack.
By · First recorded · Source updated
At the source
- OpenHands Tab on GitHub
The extension repository, including screenshots and setup instructions.
- The prototype’s product and architecture notes
Local and remote modes, implemented features and documented limitations.