VS Code

Valency Bond™ works with VS Code (opens in new tab) over MCP using OAuth. Installing the Valency extension (opens in new tab) brings the MCP connection and the research skills in one step. There's no JSON to edit, no server to add, and nothing runs on your machine; the extension is a pointer to the hosted server.

Prerequisite

• VS Code 1.109 or later

Setup

1. Install the extension. In VS Code, open the Extensions view and search for Valency, or run:

   code --install-extension valencyio.valency

   The Get started with Valency walkthrough opens on its Sign in to Valency step, and a notification appears in the bottom-right corner with a Sign in button. Both appear on every install, including reinstalls, but not on updates.

2. Choose Sign in, in either the walkthrough or the notification. VS Code starts the hosted Valency server and opens your browser. If you dismissed both, run Valency: Sign in from the Command Palette instead.

3. Complete the sign-in in your browser. VS Code stores it and refreshes it automatically from then on. There is no trust prompt: MCP servers contributed by an extension are trusted by default, and the extension ships no credentials of its own.

   Note

   A Valency account is created automatically the first time you sign in. The email you use does not have to match the email on your GitHub or Microsoft account.

4. Wait for the confirmation. Once the server is connected, VS Code shows Valency is connected with the number of research tools available and an Open Chat button.

5. Open Chat in agent mode and ask (more prompt ideas):

   Use Valency to profile Yoshua Bengio

You're connected

The agent answers with real papers from the Valency corpus, including links to everything it cites.

Skills

The extension bundles the same research workflows as the other platforms. VS Code registers them under a valency- prefix, and the agent picks the right one from what you ask.

Skill	Ask things like
valency-profile	"Who is Yoshua Bengio and what do they work on?"
valency-landscape	"Give me a landscape of cs.LG"
valency-similar	"Find papers similar to arXiv 1706.03762"
valency-trends	"Is diffusion model research still growing?"
valency-network	"Who does Yann LeCun collaborate with?"
valency-reading-list	"What should a student of geometric deep learning be reading?"
valency-fresh-collaborators	"Who should this researcher be talking to that they aren't already?"

Trigger a skill by slash command or natural language:

VS Code

/valency-profile Yoshua Bengio
What should David Hogg be reading next?

Troubleshooting

No Valency tools in agent mode? Run Valency: Sign in from the Command Palette. It starts the server, waits for its tools, and reports the result. If it warns that the connection did not finish, choose Show Output to read the server log. MCP: List Servers shows whether Valency is running.

The walkthrough didn't open? Run Welcome: Open Walkthrough... from the Command Palette and choose Get started with Valency. VS Code skips the automatic open when the workbench.welcomePage.walkthroughs.openOnInstall setting is off.

Need to switch accounts? Sign out of the Valency entry in the Accounts menu, then run Valency: Sign in to sign in fresh.

Extension won't install? Check your VS Code version. The extension requires 1.109 or later.

Uninstall

Open the Extensions view, select the gear icon on Valency, and choose Uninstall, or run:

code --uninstall-extension valencyio.valency

Sign-in state belongs to VS Code rather than the extension. To clear the cached sign-in, sign out of the Valency entry in the Accounts menu.

Commands

All of these run from the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows and Linux).

Command	What it does
Valency: Sign in	Starts the Valency server interactively, which opens the browser sign-in if needed, then confirms with the number of research tools available. Use it whenever the agent can't see Valency tools.
Welcome: Open Walkthrough...	Reopens the Get started with Valency walkthrough.
MCP: List Servers	Lists every MCP server VS Code knows about, including Valency, with start, stop, and output actions.
MCP: Show Output	Opens the log for a server. Useful if a sign-in did not complete.

The extension also keeps an output channel named Valency (View → Output, then pick Valency) that records what happened on install and sign-in.

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Need help?

If something isn't working, check Troubleshooting for common fixes. See the FAQ for general questions, or report an issue if you're still stuck.