Claude Code in VSCode: A Powerful, Context‑Aware AI Coding Companion

Installation and Configuration

Search for "Claude Code" in the VSCode Marketplace and click Install.

To bypass the login prompt, edit the configuration file at C:\Users\<username>\.claude.json and set {"hasCompletedOnboarding": true}.

{
  "hasCompletedOnboarding": true
}

Use the CC Switch tool to select a domestic large model when the project is not very complex.

If you use a cloud provider’s Coding Plan, you can configure different models (Haiku, Sonnet, Opus) for the main mode, allowing model switching within the same conversation.

Usage

After installing, Claude Code can sense the selected code, enabling code explanations that were impossible with the CLI version.

Click the bottom‑right mode switch button to change the editing mode (Modes) and the reasoning depth (Effort).

The three editing modes and five effort levels are shown in the screenshots; from version 4.7 the default effort is xhigh, which drops to high when a non‑Opus model is chosen.

Click the "Show Command Menu" button to list all commands; previously the /config command was required to enable reasoning mode.

Hovering over commands displays tooltips that save time looking up their purpose.

The /mcp command opens a graphical view of the installed MCP service status.

To restore a previous session, click the "Session History" button, which replaces the earlier /resume command.

Conclusion

The VSCode Claude Code extension provides a rich, context‑aware experience that replaces many CLI operations with a few clicks, offering superior functionality compared with the Anthropic Claude Code plugin for IntelliJ IDEA. For IDEA users, the alternative is the CC GUI plugin.