Connect your agent

Pensieve for VS Code

This page tells you how to connect VS Code to Pensieve over MCP, and what changes on your computer.

Connect VS Code

1. Install Pensieve (see Install).
2. Run one of these commands:

   pensieve integrate recommended   # every agent on this computer
   pensieve integrate vscode-mcp pensieve-search   # only VS Code

3. Restart VS Code. It loads its MCP servers when it starts.
4. Ask VS Code a question about your code, for example “where do we retry failed webhooks?”.

What Pensieve adds

VS Code has no global instructions file that Pensieve writes to. Copy the instructions block into the rules of VS Code. It tells the agent to call search before it greps.

Connect by hand

Add this entry to ~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/mcp.json. Use the full path of your pensieve command. To find it, run which pensieve.

{
  "servers": {
    "pensieve": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "/Users/you/.local/bin/pensieve",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code uses the key servers, not mcpServers, and each server has a type. The path above is the macOS path. pensieve integrate looks only there. On Linux, add the same entry to the user mcp.json of VS Code by hand.

Remove

pensieve integrate vscode-mcp --remove

Pensieve removes only the entries that it added.

See also: scopes, the MCP tools, and the benchmark.

Something wrong or missing? Tell us on GitHub.