@myanalyticsschool/connect-ide

Open a VS Code IDE on your own machine, mirrored into a MAS Class lesson tab.

This is the IDE companion to @myanalyticsschool/connect. The terminal CLI mirrors a single shell; this one mirrors a full IDE (file tree, editor, integrated terminal, extensions) by running code-server locally and exposing it through a Cloudflare Quick Tunnel.

Install

You don't install this package directly — your lesson page tells you to run it via npx:

npx -y @myanalyticsschool/connect-ide <session-token> --relay <wss-url>

You do need two tools on your PATH:

# macOS
brew install code-server cloudflared

# Linux
curl -fsSL https://code-server.dev/install.sh | sh
# (cloudflared via your distro: https://pkg.cloudflare.com/)

# Windows
winget install --id Cloudflare.cloudflared
# code-server: https://github.com/coder/code-server/releases

What it does

1. Spawns code-server --auth none on a random 127.0.0.1 port, with your chosen workspace folder.
2. Spawns cloudflared tunnel --url http://127.0.0.1:<port>, captures the generated https://<hash>.trycloudflare.com URL.
3. Opens a WebSocket to the MAS relay (/api/terminal/relay) using the lesson session token.
4. When the lesson tab connects, sends {type:"ide-ready", url} to it. The tab iframes the tunnel URL.
5. Holds the session until you press Ctrl-C or close the lesson tab.

On exit, both child processes are stopped and the temp user-data dir is removed.

Options

--workspace <dir>   Folder to open in VS Code (default: current dir)
--relay <wss-url>   Override the relay endpoint (env: MAS_CONNECT_RELAY_URL)
--port <n>          Force the local code-server port (default: random)
--no-confirm        Skip the safety prompt (NOT recommended)
--keep-data-dir     Keep the temp VS Code user-data dir on exit (debug)
-h, --help          Show help
-v, --version       Show version

Trust model

code-server runs with --auth none because there is no documented way to pre-authenticate a code-server iframe across origins. The trycloudflare URL itself is the secret:

• It is <~25 random chars>.trycloudflare.com.
• It is only sent to your lesson tab over our authenticated WSS relay.
• It is never logged or persisted server-side.
• It expires when this CLI exits.

The lesson tab will be able to read, edit, and execute any file inside the workspace folder you chose — including via the integrated terminal. Pick a workspace folder that does not contain secrets you don't want to expose to the lesson.

Compared to @myanalyticsschool/connect

| | connect | connect-ide | |---|---|---| | What's mirrored | One shell (PTY bytes) | Full VS Code (HTTPS iframe) | | Local tool needed | Just Node | code-server + cloudflared | | Bytes in iframe path | Browser ↔ relay ↔ CLI | Browser ↔ Cloudflare ↔ local | | Off-by | exit in shell | Ctrl-C in this CLI |

Both use the same relay endpoint and the same session token — your lesson scene picks which mode to use.