VS Code extension (Narrator)

Tools

Explore Chronicle from your editor

When you’re deep in a slice and something looks wrong, the question is usually “what’s actually in the event log?” Narrator answers it without a context switch: it adds a Chronicle Explorer to the VS Code activity bar, so you can browse your event store, page through a sequence, and inspect event and read-model schemas right next to the code you’re writing.

Install it

Narrator is published on the Visual Studio Marketplace as Narrator – Chronicle Explorer (publisher cratis).

Open the Extensions view in VS Code (⇧⌘X / Ctrl+Shift+X).
Search for Narrator and install Narrator – Chronicle Explorer by Cratis — or install it from the Marketplace listing.
Open the Narrator icon in the activity bar. It connects to your active Chronicle context on startup.

The source lives at github.com/Cratis/Narrator.

How it connects

Narrator reads the same configuration the CLI uses — ~/.cratis/config.json — so if you’ve already pointed the CLI at a store, the extension just works. A config looks like:

{
  "activeContext": "default",
  "contexts": {
    "default": {
      "server": "chronicle://localhost:35000",
      "managementPort": 8080
    }
  }
}

It auto-connects to the active context on startup and watches the file, reloading when it changes. To use a config in a non-standard location, set the narrator.configPath setting; leave it empty to auto-detect from ~/.cratis/config.json.

What you can do

Browse the store

Navigate event stores, namespaces, and observers in the Chronicle Explorer tree.

Page through events

Open a sequence (Event Log, Outbox, System) into a paged event viewer with keyboard navigation.

Inspect schemas

Open an event type’s or read model’s JSON schema, and open a projection’s declaration.

Switch contexts

Add, edit, and switch between multiple Chronicle server contexts without editing JSON by hand.

A Details pane sits below the explorer and shows the selected node’s context and content as key/value tables — so selecting an event or read model shows its data inline.

Where to go next

CLI getting started

Set up the ~/.cratis/config.json contexts Narrator reads, and operate the store from the terminal.

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