Your prompt library,
right inside VS Code

Press one shortcut, pick a prompt, paste it wherever you were already typing — Copilot, Claude, Cline, anywhere. No tab-switching, no hunting through old chats for the wording that worked last month.

Get it on the MarketplaceOther ways to install

On the VS Code Marketplace · free on every plan · needs VS Code 1.85.0 or newer

Where everything lives

Here's where PromptCase shows up in your editor, and where you paste. Five numbered spots in the picture below.

Where PromptCase appears in your editorAn editor window with five numbered spots. One: a PromptCase icon in the activity bar down the left opens the sidebar. Two: three buttons in the sidebar header enhance a prompt, save the clipboard, and refresh the list. Three: hovering a prompt row reveals a copy button at its right edge. Four: you paste the copied prompt into your AI chat panel with Command V or Control V. Five: a PromptCase item sits at the right-hand end of the status bar along the bottom.P1PROMPTS2Favourites3RecentLoad 15 more…app.tsAI Chat4Paste hereCmd+V / Ctrl+VPromptCase5
1

The PromptCase icon in the Activity Bar

The strip of icons down the left edge of VS Code. Click ours and the Prompts sidebar opens, grouped into Favourites and Recent — four in each, with a Load 15 more… row at the bottom when you want to dig deeper.

2

Three buttons at the top of the sidebar

Enhance rewrites the draft on your clipboard, Save stores whatever you just copied as a new prompt, and Refresh re-fetches the list if you added prompts somewhere else.

3

A copy button on each row

Hover a prompt to see a preview of its text, and a small copy button appears at the end of the row. Clicking anywhere on the row copies it too — the button is just the obvious target.

4

Your AI chat box — where you paste

PromptCase never types for you. Once a prompt is on your clipboard, you paste it into whichever chat panel you actually use. That is the whole handoff.

5

The status bar button, bottom-right

Reads PromptCasewhen you're connected and PromptCase: Connect when you're not. Click it to open the picker — or, if you're not connected yet, to connect.

There's also a collapsed PromptCase Prompts section at the bottom of the Explorer, for when you'd rather keep your file tree open. It shows exactly the same list.

One shortcut, your whole library

The picker is a normal VS Code search box. Start typing and it filters your prompts; press Enter and the full prompt — not a preview, not a snippet — lands on your clipboard, ready to paste.

Ctrl + Alt + P

The shortcut on Windows and Linux. On a Mac it's Cmd + Opt + P (the Option key, sometimes printed as Alt).

The status-bar button

Bottom-right of the window. Click PromptCase and the same picker opens — handy when you've forgotten the shortcut.

The Actions rows, at the top

Before your prompts you'll see Enhance a prompt… and Save clipboard as prompt. They disappear as soon as you start typing, so they never get in the way of a search.

The Command Palette

Press F1 (or Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + P), type PromptCase, and every command is listed there too.

The Ctrl+Alt+P prompt pickerA quick-pick panel with a search box at the top. Before you type, two actions are offered: enhance a prompt, and save the clipboard as a prompt. Below them your own prompts are listed; the highlighted one shows that pressing Enter copies the whole prompt rather than a preview.Search your PromptCase libraryCtrl+Alt+PACTIONSEnhance a prompt…Improve the text on your clipboardSave clipboard as promptStraight into your library1YOUR PROMPTSCode review checklistCheck for N+1 queries and missing tests…Enter copies21Actions only show before you start typing2Enter copies the whole prompt, not a preview
We copy, you pasteA prompt selected in PromptCase goes onto your clipboard, and you paste it into any AI chat panel. VS Code does not let one extension type into another extension’s chat box, so the clipboard is the handoff — which is exactly why it works with Copilot, Claude, Cline or anything else.One rule: we copy, you pastePromptCaseClipboardAny AI chatCmd+V / Ctrl+VVS Code won’t let one extension type into another’s chat box.So the clipboard is the handoff — Copilot, Claude, Cline, anything.

Why it copies instead of typing for you

The honest answer: VS Code doesn't allow it. An extension can't reach into another extension's chat panel and type there — Copilot Chat, Claude, Cline and the rest each own their own input box, and nothing outside them can write into it.

So the clipboard is the handoff. PromptCase copies; you paste with Cmd+V or Ctrl+V. One extra keystroke.

And that limitation turns out to be the feature: because we hand you text rather than driving one specific chat box, PromptCase works with every AI tool in your editor — including the one you switch to next year — plus commit messages, issue descriptions and anywhere else you type.

Turn a rough draft into a good prompt

Copy the half-formed thing you were about to send, run Enhance, and PromptCase rewrites it into a clearer, more specific prompt — then puts the improved version back on your clipboard so you can paste it straight away.

Before anything is sent, you get a confirmation showing exactly what will leave your machine: how many characters, how many lines, and the first ~100 characters of the text. If it isn't what you meant to copy, cancel — nothing is sent.

Enhance needs AI Brain switched on in your account, and caps the draft at 8,000 characters. It is the only part of the extension that sends prompt text to a model, and secrets are stripped out on our server before the model ever sees them.

Enhance asks before it sendsFour steps: copy a draft from any chat, run Enhance, then confirm a preview that states exactly what will be sent — the character count, the line count and the first hundred characters — before the improved prompt is copied back to your clipboard. It needs AI Brain switched on in your dashboard, caps input at eight thousand characters, and is the only feature that sends prompt text to a model.Nothing is sent until you’ve seen itCopy draftfrom any chatRun EnhanceYou confirm482 chars · 9 lines1EnhanceImprovedcopied back1Exactly what we’ll send — characters, lines and the first 100 charactersNeeds AI Brain on in your dashboard · 8,000-character limitThe only feature that sends prompt text to a model.

Install it

You need VS Code 1.85.0 or newer. Not sure? Check Help → About (on a Mac, Code → About Visual Studio Code).

From the Marketplace

Recommended

The easiest way, and it updates itself. Open the Extensions view in VS Code (Ctrl+Shift+X, or Cmd+Shift+X on a Mac), search PromptCase, and click Install — or use the button.

Open the Marketplace listing

Or install manually from a file

Prefer not to use the Marketplace, or on a locked-down machine? Download the .vsixand install it yourself — same extension, you just won't get automatic updates.

Download the extension file

It's a single file — a .vsix, which is just how VS Code packages an extension. Same file for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Download promptcase-1.0.2.vsix

Install it (no terminal needed)

This is the easiest route and it's identical on all three operating systems:

  1. Open VS Code.
  2. Open the Extensions view — the squares icon in the Activity Bar, or Ctrl+Shift+X (Cmd+Shift+X on a Mac).
  3. Click the … menu at the top of that panel and choose Install from VSIX…
  4. Pick the file you just downloaded.

Prefer the terminal? The equivalent commands for each operating system are below.

Windows — from the terminal

Command Prompt (CMD)

code --install-extension "%USERPROFILE%\Downloads\promptcase-1.0.2.vsix"

PowerShell

PowerShell is what VS Code's built-in terminal opens by default on Windows, and it does not understand %USERPROFILE%-style variables — use $env: instead, or the path will be taken literally.

code --install-extension "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\promptcase-1.0.2.vsix"

If Windows says code is not recognised

That means the "Add to PATH" box was left unticked when VS Code was installed. Call the program by its full path instead. Use the block for the terminal you're actually in — the two are not interchangeable. Try the per-user path first; if VS Code was installed for all users, use the other one.

Command Prompt (CMD)

REM per-user install (the default)
"%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\bin\code.cmd" --install-extension "%USERPROFILE%\Downloads\promptcase-1.0.2.vsix"

REM all-users ("system") install
"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft VS Code\bin\code.cmd" --install-extension "%USERPROFILE%\Downloads\promptcase-1.0.2.vsix"

PowerShell

Here a quoted path must be preceded by & (the call operator) — leaving it out is far and away the most common failure here.

# per-user install (the default)
& "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\bin\code.cmd" --install-extension "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\promptcase-1.0.2.vsix"

# all-users ("system") install
& "$env:ProgramFiles\Microsoft VS Code\bin\code.cmd" --install-extension "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\promptcase-1.0.2.vsix"

macOS — from the terminal

code --install-extension ~/Downloads/promptcase-1.0.2.vsix

If codeisn't found, macOS hasn't been given the shortcut yet. Open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P), run Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH, then try again — or skip that and call it directly:

"/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/code" --install-extension ~/Downloads/promptcase-1.0.2.vsix

Linux — from the terminal

code --install-extension ~/Downloads/promptcase-1.0.2.vsix

If codeisn't found, where it lives depends on how you installed VS Code:

# installed from a .deb or .rpm package
/usr/share/code/bin/code --install-extension ~/Downloads/promptcase-1.0.2.vsix

# installed as a Snap
/snap/bin/code --install-extension ~/Downloads/promptcase-1.0.2.vsix

# installed from a .tar.gz — add its bin folder to PATH first
export PATH="$PATH:/path/to/VSCode-linux-x64/bin"
code --install-extension ~/Downloads/promptcase-1.0.2.vsix

# installed as a Flatpak
flatpak run com.visualstudio.code --install-extension ~/Downloads/promptcase-1.0.2.vsix

Linux users: read this before you connect

Many Linux setups have no system keyring, and without one VS Code forgets your PromptCase login every time you close it. It's a two-minute, one-time fix — see "You have to reconnect every time VS Code restarts".

Reload, then connect your account

  1. Reload the window. Installing an extension doesn't swap out the code that's already running. Open the Command Palette (F1) and run Developer: Reload Window, or just quit and reopen VS Code. The PromptCase icon then appears in the Activity Bar.
  2. Get a token. Sign in and open Dashboard → Devices. You can copy either the bare pc_tok_… token or the whole JSON block. Copy the JSON if you can — it carries a renewal key, so the extension keeps itself signed in instead of expiring on you.
  3. Click Connect PromptCase in the sidebar and paste. (The sidebar button is the reliable route — the Command Palette equivalent can be fiddly.) Paste either form; the extension works out which one you gave it.

Your token is kept in VS Code's own encrypted secret storage — not in a settings file, and never in your project. To sign out, open the Command Palette (F1) and run PromptCase: Disconnect — that revokes the token on our servers too, so a copy left anywhere else stops working.

Small habits that pay off

None of these take more than a few seconds, and they compound.

Star the ones you reuse

Favourites sit at the top of both the picker and the sidebar, so the prompts you reach for weekly are always the first thing you see. Ten to twenty is about right.

Save the good ones as you go

When a prompt finally lands, copy it and hit Save clipboard as prompt. It shows up in your dashboard labelled VS Code, so you can always tell where it came from.

Keep the sidebar open

If you use prompts constantly, leave the PromptCase panel open beside your chat. Hovering a row previews it, so you can find the right one by reading rather than remembering.

Enhance instead of rewriting

When a prompt isn't getting you what you want, don't start over — copy it, run Enhance, and paste the sharper version back. Usually faster than a third attempt by hand.

What leaves your machine

  • The extension talks to promptcase.dev and nowhere else — and only when you do something. Nothing runs in the background.
  • It never reads the code in your workspace. Your files, your repo and your terminal are not touched.
  • There is no telemetry. We don't track which prompts you open or what you type.
  • Enhance is the only feature that sends prompt text to an AI model. It requires AI Brain to be switched on, it shows you exactly what will be sent and waits for you to confirm, and our server strips out anything that looks like a secret before the model sees it.

The full detail is in our Privacy Policy.

Troubleshooting

Almost everything people hit is one of these.

You have to reconnect every time VS Code restarts (Linux)

VS Code doesn't store your login itself — it hands it to your operating system's keyring, the same secure vault your browser uses to remember passwords. Windows and macOS always have one built in. On Linux it's optional, and if VS Code can't find one it quietly drops the token when you close the window. Nothing is broken; there was simply nowhere safe to put it.

You tell VS Code which keyring to use, once:

  1. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P).
  2. Run Preferences: Configure Runtime Arguments. A small settings file opens.
  3. Add the password-store line inside the braces that are already there— keep the rest of the file, don't replace it:
{
  // ...anything already in here stays...
  "password-store": "gnome-libsecret"
}
  1. Save the file.
  2. Quit VS Code completely and reopen it — reloading the window is not enough here.
  3. Connect once more. It should stick from now on.

On KDE, use "kwallet6" (or "kwallet5" on older versions) instead. "basic" always works as a last resort, but it keeps the token in a plain file that any program running as your user can read — less protected than a real keyring. Depending on your distribution you may also need to install gnome-keyring or libsecret from your package manager.

Using Remote-SSH, WSL or a dev container? The token is stored by the VS Code window running on your own computer, not on the remote machine — so it's that machine's keyring that matters, and this fix goes there.

Everything else

  • It installed, but nothing showed up — installing an extension doesn't restart the code that's already running. Open the Command Palette and run Developer: Reload Window (or quit and reopen VS Code). The PromptCase icon appears in the Activity Bar right after.
  • I picked a prompt and nothing appeared in my chat — that's working as intended. VS Code doesn't let one extension type into another's chat box, so we copy the prompt and you paste it (Cmd/Ctrl+V). Click into the chat box first, then paste.
  • The box to paste my token never appears — use the Connect PromptCasebutton in the sidebar rather than the Command Palette command. It's the same action, but the sidebar route is far more reliable about opening the input box.
  • "AI features are not enabled on your PromptCase account." — that message only ever comes from Enhance. Turn on AI Brain in your dashboard and it'll work; everything else in the extension runs without it.
  • "Session expired" / you get signed out — connect again with a fresh token from Dashboard → Devices. Pasting the JSON block rather than the bare pc_tok_… string avoids this happening again — the JSON includes a renewal key, so the extension refreshes itself.
  • Still stuck? Email support@promptcase.dev and tell us your operating system and VS Code version.

Two minutes to set up

Your prompts are already in PromptCase. Put them one keystroke away in the editor you spend all day in.

Get it on the MarketplaceGet your token