Show HN: Tab'd – Track and share AI and clipboard operations within your IDE

Bring transparency to modern development with Tab'd - an IDE extension that tracks and visualizes AI-assisted coding and copy-paste operations in your codebase. Help your team understand code authorship and maintain accountability in an era of AI-powered development, while gaining insights into your own coding patterns.

Tab'd provides intelligent tracking and visualization of different types of code changes:

• AI-Generated Code Detection - Automatically identifies and highlights code generated by AI assistants like GitHub Copilot, Windsurf and Kiro
• Visual Code Attribution - Color-coded highlighting shows the source of each code section
• Manual Edit Recognition - Distinguishes between user-typed code and other edit types
• Undo/Redo Tracking - Tracks code changes from undo and redo operations
• Paste Operation Tracking - Monitors and marks code that's been pasted from external sources like StackOverflow (requires installation of the browser extension and associated browser helper tool)
• Team Transparency - Optionally share edit attribution with team members when using the "Repository" storage option, allowing others to see where AI-generated or pasted code was used
• Persistent History - Maintains edit history across sessions

Tab'd uses color-coded background highlights to show different edit types:

Hovering over a highlight gives further information about the type of change, who performed the change, and when it was performed.

1. Open the IDE
2. Go to the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X)
3. Search for "Tabd" (no apostrophe)
4. Click Install

Or install from the VS Code Marketplace or Open VSX Registry.

To add web-based UI support and/or webpage clipboard support, you must also install the browser extension and its associated browser helper tool. Use the command Tab'd: Install browser helper to install the browser helper tool onto your machine.

Tab'd works automatically in the background once installed. It will:

• Track all code changes in supported file types
• Classify edit types based on how the code was added
• Store tracking data persistently for later analysis
• Show visual indicators when blame view is enabled

Access these commands via the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P):

• Tab'd: Toggle Blame - Show/hide the color-coded edit attribution
• Tab'd: Toggle Enabled - Enable/disable all Tab'd tracking
• Tab'd: Clear tracking data for current file - Clears tracking data for the currently open file
• Tab'd: Clear tracking data for current workspace or repository - Clears all tracking data
• Tab'd: Install browser helper - Installs the browser helper to the machine (allows for web browser clipboard context)

Tab'd uses safe, local-only defaults. You can configure Tab'd through settings:

• Home Directory (default) - Store data in your personal ~/.tabd directory (private)
• Repository - Store data in your project's .tabd directory (shared with team/repo)
• Git Notes - Store and push data automatically using custom-namespaced Git Notes (shared with team/repo)

The following IDE's and extensions are known to be supported (though bugs will likely still exist):

• GitHub Copilot / GitHub Copilot Chat (inline suggestions and edit/agent mode)
• Windsurf (inline suggestions and edit/agent mode)
• Kiro (inline suggestions and edit/agent mode)
• Other AI assistants - (inline suggestions, unreliably)

Tab'd respects your privacy:

• Safe Defaults - No data is sent to external servers by default
• Configurable Storage - Choose between tracking data storage options
• Full Control - Quick commands to clean up your Tab'd data if needed

If you find Tab'd useful, consider:

• ⭐ Starring the GitHub repository
• 💝 Sponsoring the project
• 📝 Leaving a review on the VS Code Marketplace / Open VSX Registry