IDE PluginsDeveloper Tools··3 min read

See your AI Brain in VS Code and IntelliJ

Your AI assistant builds up knowledge over time. Now you can see exactly how much it knows — right in your editor's status bar.

Why a brain monitor?

The Cachly Brain stores lessons, context, and indexed files that your AI assistant accumulates across sessions. But until now, that was invisible. You couldn't tell if your brain had 5 lessons or 50, whether it was healthy, or when the last session happened.

The new IDE plugins surface this information where you already look: your editor's status bar.

What you see

🧠

Status bar widget

Shows lesson count and brain health at a glance: '🧠 42 lessons · healthy'. Updates every 30 seconds.

📋

Brain Health panel

One click opens a detailed view: lesson count, context entries, topics covered, last session time, and estimated token savings.

📚

Lesson browser

Browse all stored lessons with topic, severity, outcome (success/failure), and recall count. See what your brain knows.

💰

Token savings estimate

Every recall saves ~1,200 tokens of context. The plugin shows cumulative savings across all sessions.

VS Code

# Install from VSIX (marketplace listing coming soon)
code --install-extension cachly-brain-0.5.2.vsix

# Or search "Cachly Brain" in the Extensions panel

Configure your instance ID and API key in VS Code settings (cachly.instanceId, cachly.apiKey). The status bar widget appears immediately. Click it for the full brain health panel — rendered as a formatted Markdown preview.

IntelliJ / WebStorm / all JetBrains IDEs

# Install from disk (JetBrains Marketplace listing coming soon)
# Settings → Plugins → ⚙️ → Install from disk → cachly-brain.zip

Same features as VS Code: status bar widget, brain health action, lesson viewer. Works in IntelliJ IDEA, WebStorm, PyCharm, GoLand, and all other JetBrains IDEs. Configure via Settings → Tools → Cachly Brain.

What the plugins don't do

These are read-only monitors. They show brain health but don't write to it. The brain itself is managed by the MCP server — your AI assistant (Claude, Copilot, Cursor, etc.) learns lessons and stores context through MCP tools.

Think of it like a fitness tracker for your AI: it shows the stats, but the workout happens in the chat window.

Coming next

We're working on inline lesson suggestions — when you're editing a file that has relevant lessons in the brain, the plugin will show a subtle hint. Think "your AI fixed a similar bug here last week" as a code lens annotation.

Your brain, visible. Install the plugin, check your brain health, and see every lesson your AI has ever learned — directly in your editor.