No cloud. No dashboard. No Docker. Just your IDE and your team.
HackPair lets you and your teammates code together from anywhere. See each other's cursors, code, and files in real-time.
One extension to start. One link to share. That's it.
The host's machine runs the server. Your code never touches anyone else's infrastructure.
| 🔴 Live Cursors | See where your teammates are working in your editor |
| 📝 Real-Time Sync | Code edits sync across all members |
| 👥 Team Awareness | See who's online, click to view their code |
| 📂 Shared Workspaces | Browse anyone's file tree from your sidebar |
| 🔒 100% Private | Your code never leaves your machine |
| 🔄 Auto-Reconnect | Reopen VS Code → back in the team instantly |
| 🔑 Edit Permissions | Viewers are read-only until the host grants access |
Download hackpair-1.0.0.vsix from Releases and install:
code --install-extension hackpair-1.0.0.vsixOr from the Extensions panel: ⋯ → Install from VSIX…
Zero config. No account, no token, no setup. Create a room and HackPair starts a public link for you automatically.
- Click the HackPair icon in VS Code sidebar
- Enter your name
- Click "Create Room"
- Pick your workspace folder to share
- Copy the invite link → Share with team
- Click the HackPair icon in VS Code sidebar
- Enter your name
- Paste the invite link
- Click "Join Room"
- Pick your workspace folder to share
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ HackPair │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ https://ab-cd-ef.trycloudflare.com?room=ABC123 │
│ [Copy Link] [Copy Code] │
│ │
│ Team (3) │
│ ──────────────── │
│ 🔵 Alice (you) │
│ 🟢 Bob ← click to see files │
│ 🟡 Charlie ← click to see files │
│ │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Click any teammate → See their file tree → Click a file → Read their code.
The host can edit and broadcast changes. Everyone else joins read-only and can press Request Edit Access; the host gets a Grant/Deny prompt.
A round of fixes to the things that stopped the extension working end to end.
| Fix | What was wrong |
|---|---|
| Rooms actually start | The server was spawned with VS Code's own binary instead of Node, and readiness was detected by waiting for a log line the server never printed. Every Create Room failed after 8s. |
| Auto-reconnect works | The server deleted your member record on disconnect, so your saved token was dead the moment you closed VS Code — you silently came back as a read-only observer. |
| Cursors & edits land | File paths were resolved against the VS Code workspace root rather than the shared folder, so they never matched on the receiving side. Now normalised and POSIX-separated, so Windows ↔ macOS/Linux works. |
| No more edit ping-pong | Applying a remote edit re-broadcast it back to the sender. Edits are now debounced and echo-guarded. |
| File trees show up | The tree was pushed on a fixed timer that usually fired before the socket connected. It's now sent on connect. |
| Usable invite links | The link used the first network adapter found — often WSL, Hyper-V, or VirtualBox. Real LAN addresses are now preferred. |
| Clicking yourself | Used to reload the whole VS Code window and drop your session. It now shows your own shared tree. |
| Sessions are authenticated | An unknown token used to be silently downgraded to a read-only viewer, which also let anyone with a room id watch the room. Bad tokens are now rejected outright. |
| The public link works | The packaged extension shipped a 52 MB cloudflared.exe at a path no code read, while excluding the module needed to drive it — so the tunnel threw "cloudflared package not found" on every install. The binary now lives where the code looks, and the library is bundled. |
| No more dead invite links | cloudflared announces its URL before it finishes connecting. On networks that block outbound port 7844 you were handed a public link that returned HTTP 530 to everyone. HackPair now waits for a registered connection and falls back to the LAN link, telling you why. |
Also: one Cloudflare tunnel instead of two, the tunnel points at 127.0.0.1 rather than
localhost (the server binds IPv4 only), the database moved to VS Code global storage
(the extension folder is wiped on update), and a proper Leave Room that releases your slot.
Upgrade together. 1.0.0 changes the extension ↔ server handshake, so every teammate needs 1.0.0 for a room to work.
| Scenario | How |
|---|---|
| Same WiFi | Use your local IP: http://192.168.x.x:3001 |
| Remote Team | Built-in Cloudflare tunnel — fully automatic on room creation, no account or token |
| Port Forwarding | Forward port 3001 on your router |
Cloudflare quick-tunnel URLs change every time the host restarts. Re-share the link after a restart, or use a LAN address if everyone is on the same network.
Tunnel needs outbound port 7844. Plenty of school, corporate and conference networks block it. If yours does, HackPair says so and falls back to your local network link — share that with teammates on the same WiFi, or tether to a phone hotspot.
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Server | Fastify |
| Real-time | Socket.io |
| Database | sql.js (SQLite in WASM) |
| Tunnel | cloudflared quick tunnels |
| Extension | VS Code API |
| Language | TypeScript |
On sync: edits currently propagate as whole-file updates from whoever holds edit access. The Y.js CRDT plumbing exists on the server, but the client does not emit deltas yet — so two people editing the same file at the same time will still overwrite each other. Have one person hold the pen per file, or open an issue if you want to help finish it.
hackpair/
├── packages/
│ ├── extension/ # VS Code extension (bundles the server)
│ │ ├── src/ # TypeScript source
│ │ └── dist/ # esbuild output: extension.js + server.js
│ ├── server/ # Fastify + Socket.IO server
│ ├── shared/ # Shared types
│ └── dashboard-tool/ # Standalone server + web dashboard
└── .github/workflows/ # Tag a release → builds and attaches the .vsix
# Clone
git clone https://github.com/Hussaincodes01/HackPair.git
cd HackPair
npm install
# Type-check everything
npm run typecheck
# Build the extension + bundled server into packages/extension/dist
node packages/extension/build.js
# Package a .vsix
npm run package --workspace=packages/extensionPORT=3001 HACKPAIR_NO_TUNNEL=1 node packages/extension/dist/server.jsIt prints HACKPAIR_SERVER_READY port=<port> once it can serve requests — the extension
watches for that marker, then confirms with GET /api/health.
| Env var | Purpose |
|---|---|
PORT |
Listen port (default 3001) |
HOST |
Bind address (default 0.0.0.0) |
HACKPAIR_NO_TUNNEL |
Set to 1 to skip the Cloudflare tunnel |
HACKSYNC_DATA_DIR |
Where hacksync.db lives (default <server>/data) |
Open the repo in VS Code and press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host.
Server logs are forwarded to the Debug Console prefixed with HackPair server:.
# 1. Bump the version in packages/*/package.json
# 2. Commit, then tag:
git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0The release workflow builds the .vsix and attaches it to the GitHub Release.
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch (
git checkout -b feature/amazing) - Commit changes (
git commit -m 'Add amazing feature') - Push to branch (
git push origin feature/amazing) - Open a Pull Request
MIT License - see LICENSE for details.
Built for hackathon teams everywhere
