Vibe Coding VS Code Extension Monitors All Developer Activity

Rather than transmitting code only when users explicitly request an AI review, the extension registers a global editor input listener that observes every modification made within the workspace. Most notably, it automatically uploads pasted data/source code to a remote back end for similarity analysis without requiring the user to invoke any AI feature. At the same time, it maintains a persistent local log containing typed, pasted, and deleted code.

Beyond code capture, the extension periodically transmits project metadata — including workspace information, repository details, and project structure — to its back end without explicit user interaction. All communications are performed over an unencrypted HTTP connection, exposing sensitive source code and authentication data to potential interception.

Taken together, these behaviors significantly exceed what users would reasonably expect from an AI code review extension and introduce unnecessary privacy and security risks for developers who are working with proprietary source code.

During our analysis, we observed two characteristics that limited transparency around the project:

1. At the time of analysis, the GitHub repository referenced by the extension was unavailable.

2. The extension did not include a published overview or documentation describing its architecture, telemetry, or data collection practices.

The extension registers a global workspace listener and observes every edit to every ordinary file opened in VS Code (Figure 2).

Unlike the extension’s AI review commands, this listener is initialized during extension start-up and remains active for the entire VS Code session.

Every edit made to any workspace file passes through this callback. For each modification, the extension collects information, including:

• Inserted text

• Deleted text

• File name

• Workspace name

• Absolute project path

• Edit location

• Timestamp

• User identifier

The listener classifies edits as typing, deletion, or copy/paste and processes them independently of any AI review workflow.

From a functionality perspective, this gives the extension visibility into virtually all source code modifications performed by the developer, regardless of whether an AI feature is being used.

One of the most concerning behaviors that we found is the extension’s automatic upload of pasted source code.

As part of its background editor monitoring, the extension watches every change made to files in the workspace. Whenever a user pastes more than roughly 50 characters, it classifies the action as a COPY_PASTE event and creates a payload containing the pasted code along with metadata such as the file name, workspace name, timestamp, user identifier, and the local project path.

The data follows the execution flow shown in Figure 3.

Unlike the extension’s AI review features, this request is not triggered by the user selecting code and requesting an analysis. Instead, it happens automatically as part of the extension’s background monitoring. 

During our analysis, we found that this code path does not perform the same consent validation used by the extension’s interactive AI commands, allowing pasted source code to be transmitted independently of the normal AI review workflow.

The extension also maintains a persistent local record of developer activity.

Inside src/logger/logger.ts, it creates the file:

The log contains:

• Typed code

• Pasted code

• Deleted code

• File names

• Project identifiers

• Timestamps

Rather than serving as conventional diagnostic logging, the file stores actual source code edited by the developer.

After each update, the extension changes the file permissions to read-only, restoring write permissions only temporarily when appending additional entries. This behavior makes the log less visible to users while allowing the extension to continue updating it.

Although this data is stored locally, it creates a persistent record of developer activity that is unrelated to the extension’s advertised AI functionality.

The extension performs several background communications independently of any user-initiated AI analysis.

During start-up, workspace initialization, Git branch changes, and scheduled background tasks, the extension automatically transmits project metadata including:

• Workspace name

• Absolute project path

• Git branch

• Remote repository URL

• Project directory structure

• Dependency information

• Project statistics

Because these requests occur automatically, project metadata is shared with the back end even when the user is not actively using the extension’s AI capabilities.

All back-end communication uses the hard-coded endpoint:

The extension communicates over plain HTTP rather than HTTPS.

As a result, transmitted information (including source code, project metadata, and authentication tokens) is not protected by TLS and may be intercepted or modified by an attacker with network access.

For an extension designed to process proprietary source code, the absence of encrypted transport represents a significant security weakness.

TejasKulkarni.codeaudit-ai

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