Visualizing Parallel AI Coding with VSParallel
A desktop app for monitoring multiple workspaces and AI agents in one place.
As AI coding agents have become part of my daily workflow, I have found myself running multiple development tasks in parallel more often.
I might ask an agent to work on one project, switch to another VS Code window, and continue a different task while the first one is still running.
This makes development much more parallel, but it also creates a new problem:
Which workspace is still active, which task has finished, and where should I go back next?
To make that easier to manage, I built VSParallel, a local-first desktop app that gives you a single view of your coding workspaces and AI agent activity.
What is VSParallel?
VSParallel is a desktop companion for viewing multiple coding workspaces and high-level AI agent activity in one place.
It brings together:
Open and recent workspaces
Editor and workspace status
AI agent activity
Recent turn completion status
Available usage, quota, token, or context information
Instead of switching between editor windows just to see what is happening, you can use VSParallel as a compact overview of your current development sessions.
Main screen
VSParallel shows AI service usage information at the top and workspace and agent activity below.
The upper section shows information from supported AI coding services such as Codex, Claude Code, Antigravity, Gemini CLI, Zed Agent, and Cursor.
Not every card represents the same kind of limit. Depending on the provider, VSParallel may show rate limits, model quota, token usage, or context information.
The lower section shows your workspaces.
You can quickly see which editor a workspace belongs to, whether agent activity has been detected, and whether the latest turn has finished, without opening each editor window individually.
Why support multiple editors?
VSParallel originally came from my own workflow of opening multiple VS Code windows and running extensions such as Codex and Claude across different projects.
But not everyone uses the same editor.
Some developers primarily use Cursor, while others prefer Zed, Antigravity, or VS Code. So I expanded VSParallel to support multiple editors rather than designing it around a single development environment.
The goal is not to encourage one person to use every editor at the same time.
The goal is to make VSParallel useful regardless of which supported editor you prefer.
Current editor support includes:
| Editor | Main information available |
|---|---|
| VS Code | Open windows, focus state, recent workspaces, Codex and Claude Code activity |
| Cursor | Windows, focus state, recent workspaces, Cursor Agent activity |
| Antigravity | Windows, focus state, recent workspaces, agent activity |
| Zed | Open and recent workspaces, saved agent state, model and token information |
The exact information available differs by editor because each editor exposes different local data and integration mechanisms.
What can VSParallel do?
See multiple workspaces in one place
VSParallel brings open and recent workspaces into a single view.
When you have several projects running at the same time, this makes it easier to understand what is open and where each task belongs.
For supported workspaces, you can also open the project or bring an existing editor window to the foreground directly from VSParallel.
Track high-level AI agent activity
With the relevant Companion or lifecycle hook installed, VSParallel can display high-level agent activity.
For example, it can help indicate whether:
Agent activity has recently been detected
A turn is currently active
The latest turn has finished
The current state cannot yet be determined
VSParallel is not designed to read or display your prompts and AI responses.
It focuses on the minimum amount of lifecycle information needed to answer a simpler question:
Which workspace should I check next?
View usage information together
When using multiple AI coding services, usage information is often spread across different CLIs, editors, and provider interfaces.
VSParallel brings the locally available information into one screen.
Depending on the provider, this may include:
Rate limits
Model quota
Token usage
Remaining context
These values are intentionally presented according to what they actually represent. For example, a token count is not shown as if it were a subscription limit.
Jump back to the workspace you need
Workspace cards can be used to open a project or focus an existing editor window.
On supported systems, workspaces are also accessible from the system tray.
You can also enable Always on Top and keep VSParallel beside your editor as a small monitoring panel.
Local-first by design
Privacy is especially important for tools that sit close to source code and AI coding workflows.
VSParallel is designed to operate locally and does not include its own account system, advertising, product telemetry, or analytics backend.
It does not send your prompts, AI responses, source code, terminal contents, transcripts, or Git data to a VSParallel-operated server.
Some usage integrations may launch local tools provided by services such as Codex or Claude Code. Those tools may communicate with their own providers, but VSParallel itself does not upload your development content to its own backend.
Technical stack
VSParallel is built as a desktop application using:
Tauri 2
Rust
TypeScript
Lightweight editor companions
Optional lifecycle hooks
Read-only local adapters where appropriate
For VS Code-compatible editors, a lightweight Companion can provide workspace heartbeat information.
Optional lifecycle hooks provide limited agent state information.
For Zed, VSParallel reads supported local data in a read-only manner.
Who is VSParallel for?
VSParallel may be useful if you:
Keep several project windows open at the same time
Let an AI coding agent work while moving to another task
Frequently switch windows just to check whether an agent has finished
Use VS Code, Cursor, Zed, or Antigravity as your primary editor
Want a compact view of available AI coding usage information
VSParallel is not a large orchestration system for automatically controlling multiple agents.
It is a small desktop companion for keeping parallel coding work visible and helping you decide where your attention should go next.
Final thoughts
AI coding agents make it much easier to work on several tasks in parallel.
But as the number of parallel tasks increases, a new human problem appears: keeping track of where attention is needed.
VSParallel was built to make that part simpler.
The project is still evolving, and I would be happy to hear feedback, bug reports, ideas for new editor integrations, or other improvements.
If you find it useful, a GitHub Star is also greatly appreciated.
