Use your Perplexity account (Free / Pro / Max) directly inside VS Code — no API key needed.
Not affiliated with Perplexity AI, Inc. This is a community-maintained project.
Experimental — Under active development. APIs and behavior may change without notice.
▶ Watch the demo on YouTube
| IDE | Install |
|---|---|
| Visual Studio Code |  |
| VS Code Insiders |  |
| Cursor |  |
| Windsurf |  |
| Trae |  |
| Open VSX (Gitpod · Theia · Coder) |  |
A VS Code extension that embeds the Perplexity MCP runtime directly in your editor. It drives a long-lived patchright Chromium session against your existing Perplexity account — so it uses your Free / Pro / Max plan instead of an API key.
- Zero API key — authenticates via your browser session, uses your existing Perplexity plan.
- Embedded MCP server — registered via
mcpServerDefinitionProviders; agents (Copilot, Cursor, etc.) pick it up automatically. - Webview dashboard — login flows, profile management, session status, all inside VS Code.
- Auto-config for 20+ IDEs — one click writes MCP configs and rulesets for Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Desktop, Cline, Amp, Codex CLI, Visual Studio 2022, OpenCode, GitHub Copilot CLI, Factory Droid, Qwen Code, and more.
- Multi-account profile switching — multiple Perplexity accounts (Free / Pro / Max) coexist; switching the active profile in the dashboard propagates to running MCP servers automatically without needing to restart your IDE.
- Self-healing login + vault — login flows have a wall-clock timeout and a Cancel button; vault decryption transparently falls back across keychain ↔ env-var-passphrase to survive key rotations or extension upgrades that flip your unseal preference.
- Daemon mode — keep a long-lived HTTP MCP server running with Cloudflare or ngrok tunnels.
- Install the extension from the Marketplace.
- Open the Command Palette (
Ctrl+Shift+P/Cmd+Shift+P) and runPerplexity: Login. - A browser window opens — log in to your Perplexity account.
- Done. The MCP server is now available to any agent in VS Code.
First run only: Perplexity serves a Cloudflare Turnstile on the first login. The extension opens a headed browser so you can complete it. After that, sessions are cached and renewed automatically.
The extension automates a real Chromium browser to survive Cloudflare. It probes in this order:
| Priority | Browser | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | Google Chrome | Recommended — best Cloudflare compatibility |
| #2 | Microsoft Edge | Works on all platforms |
| #3 | System Chromium | Good for Linux / headless servers |
| #4 | Brave | Auto-detected, no special flags |
| #5 | Bundled Chromium | Fallback via npx patchright install chromium |
Override detection with PERPLEXITY_BROWSER_CHANNEL or PERPLEXITY_BROWSER_PATH.
Run Perplexity: Configure IDEs from the Command Palette to auto-write MCP configs and rules for:
| Client | Config written |
|---|---|
| Cursor | .cursor/rules/*.mdc, mcp.json |
| Claude Desktop / Claude Code | claude_desktop_config.json, CLAUDE.md |
| Windsurf / Windsurf Next | mcp_config.json, .windsurf/rules/* |
| Cline | MCP settings, .clinerules/* |
| Amp | .github/instructions/*, AGENTS.md |
| Codex CLI | ~/.codex/config.toml, AGENTS.md |
| VS Code MCP / Visual Studio 2022 | .vscode/mcp.json / <sln>/.mcp.json (root key servers) |
| OpenCode | ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json (root key mcp), AGENTS.md |
| GitHub Copilot CLI | ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json, AGENTS.md |
| Factory Droid | ~/.factory/mcp.json, AGENTS.md |
| Qwen Code | ~/.qwen/settings.json, AGENTS.md |
| Gemini CLI / Firebase Studio / Kiro | ~/.gemini/settings.json, .idx/mcp.json, ~/.kiro/settings/mcp.json |
| …and more | See full IDE list |
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
Perplexity: Login |
Open login browser and authenticate |
Perplexity: Logout |
Clear cached session |
Perplexity: Configure IDEs |
Auto-write MCP configs for all supported IDEs |
Perplexity: Open Dashboard |
Open the webview dashboard |
Perplexity: Restart Server |
Restart the embedded MCP daemon |
MIT License · Not affiliated with Perplexity AI, Inc.