DEV Community: Abhishek Verma

🚀 Build & Ship Faster with Azure DevOps PR Helper — A VS Code Extension for Seamless Pull Requests

Abhishek Verma — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 01:39:40 +0000

Say goodbye to browser tabs, manual PRs, and context switching.

If you're a developer using Azure DevOps and VS Code, chances are you've wished there was a smoother way to raise pull requests without jumping into the Azure portal every time.

Introducing Azure DevOps PR Helper — a free and open-source VS Code extension I created to automate and streamline PR creation right inside your code editor. With just a few prompts, this tool helps you:

✅ Raise PRs
✅ Link Work Items
✅ Copy the PR URL
✅ And do it all without leaving VS Code.

🔗 GitHub Repository

👉 https://github.com/mrcreatist/azure-devops-pr-helper

💡 Why I built this

At work, I often found myself repeating the same steps for every PR:

Switch to browser
Open Azure DevOps
Navigate to the repo
Find the right branch
Fill in the details
Link work items manually

This was unnecessarily slow — and let’s be honest — breaks the developer flow.

I realized that VS Code already knows the repo, branch, and more. So I built this extension to automate the grunt work and make the PR process frictionless.

🔧 Key Features

🔐 Secure PAT Handling

The extension securely stores your Azure DevOps Personal Access Token (PAT) using vscode.SecretStorage, so you only enter it once.

🌱 Auto-detects Repo & Branch

It uses Git CLI to automatically detect your repository and current branch, pre-filling the prompts to save time.

📤 Pull Request Creation

Raises a new PR using Azure DevOps REST API, with options to enter:

Source branch
Target branch
PR title and description

🔗 Work Item Linking

You can directly link one or more Work Item IDs while raising the PR — no separate step needed!

📋 Copy PR URL Instantly

After the PR is raised, you get an option to copy the PR URL to clipboard for quick sharing.

🏁 Getting Started

Clone the repo
Run npm install
Create an org-config.ts file like this:

export const orgConfig = {
  orgHost: 'https://YOUR_ORG.visualstudio.com',
  project: 'YOUR_PROJECT'
};

Open in VS Code and launch the extension host
Use the command palette:

Raise PR → to start
Copy Last PR URL → to retrieve the latest PR link

🧠 Behind the Scenes

VS Code Extension API: For prompts, command registration, and secure storage
Git CLI + child_process: For branch and repo detection
Axios + Azure DevOps REST API: For PR creation and work item linking
TypeScript: For type safety and readability

📈 SEO Tags

Azure DevOps, VS Code Extension, Raise PR from VS Code, Automate Azure DevOps Pull Request, Link Work Items DevOps, DevOps Developer Productivity Tools, Azure DevOps REST API PR, Secure PAT VS Code, GitHub Open Source Extensions, DevOps Workflow Automation

📬 What’s next?

I’m planning:

Reviewer assignment support
Default PR templates
Auto-close linked work items
Publishing to the official VS Code Marketplace

🙌 Contribute

This project is open-source and built for developers, by a developer.

If you:

Use Azure DevOps
Want to speed up your PR process
Love clean VS Code integrations

Then clone it, try it out, and feel free to fork, star ⭐️, or raise a PR:
👉 https://github.com/mrcreatist/azure-devops-pr-helper

✍️ Author

Abhishek Verma
Software Developer | Builder of Useful Things | @axvrma

🧠 How I Built My Own Claude-Powered Code Predictor for VS Code (Before GitHub Copilot Caught Up)

Abhishek Verma — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 04:46:33 +0000

“I needed Claude in my IDE. GitHub Copilot didn’t support it. So I built my own tool.”

As developers, we’re constantly looking for ways to boost our productivity without compromising code quality. When GitHub Copilot first hit the scene, it felt magical. But for me, Claude AI by Anthropic stood out — especially in terms of logical reasoning and structured code generation.

There was just one problem.

❌ Claude wasn’t integrated into my coding workflow.
❌ No VS Code extensions.
❌ No Copilot-like suggestions.

So, I took matters into my own hands.

🚀 Introducing Claude Code Predictor

Claude Code Predictor is a custom-built, open-source VS Code extension that brings the power of Claude’s code generation right into your editor.

Instead of switching between browser tabs and copying code from a chatbot, I now get real-time, in-editor predictions powered by Claude.

It’s fast.
It’s contextual.
It works with just a Claude API key.

🔧 Why I Built It

At the time of building this tool, GitHub Copilot didn’t support Claude. And I had already noticed that Claude generated better-quality logic and clearer, production-grade code — especially for backend workflows and typed languages.

But integrating Claude into my workflow wasn’t easy:

No VS Code plugins.
No CLI support.
No autocomplete in the editor.

All I wanted was something like:

“Predict the next few lines of code based on my current file context — using Claude.”

So I rolled up my sleeves and made it happen.

💡 How It Works

Here’s the breakdown:

🧠 Context Gathering

Captures the last n lines of code before your cursor (configurable).
Automatically detects the language from the file extension.

🤖 Claude Prompting

Sends the context to Claude via the API (or CLI if configured).
Uses a detailed prompt crafted for code prediction:

“Predict the next few lines of code. No explanation. No markdown. Just the code.”

✍️ Inline Suggestions

Displays Claude’s prediction inside VS Code as ghost text.
You can enable/disable auto-suggest or manually trigger suggestions.

🧱 Intelligent Formatting

Preserves indentation.
Formats multi-line output to fit right into your code seamlessly.

🛠️ Features at a Glance

✅ Claude 3 support (via Anthropic API)
✅ Automatic language detection
✅ Inline or manual prediction mode
✅ CLI fallback (for offline/local Claude workflows)
✅ Configurable settings (tokens, debounce time, context lines)

Think of it like your own Claude-powered Copilot — before Copilot got smarter.

📂 Code & Setup

The project is fully open-source. Here's how to get started:

git clone https://github.com/mrcreatist/claude-code-predictor
cd claude-code-predictor
npm install
code .

Make sure you enter your Claude API key in VS Code when prompted.

You can even map a shortcut or add a command to the Command Palette like Claude: Get Suggestion.

👉 Full setup guide and contribution instructions available in the GitHub repo.

🚧 What’s Next?

Here’s what I’m planning to add soon:

Support for multiple Claude models (e.g., Claude Haiku for speed, Opus for depth)
Feedback loop training using local usage logs (privacy-respecting)
Model comparison: Claude vs GPT vs Copilot
Prompt tuning and temperature customization per project

🔄 Final Thoughts

When tools don’t yet exist — that’s often your biggest opportunity.
This project started as a simple productivity hack for myself, but it’s now something I use daily.

If you:

Prefer Claude over Copilot
Want more control over your code suggestions
Love building things with AI in your own dev setup

Then Claude Code Predictor is for you.

🧠 Try it. Fork it. Hack it.
Let’s make our editors smarter — our way.

🔗 Try it now → GitHub: mrcreatist/claude-code-predictor

🏷 SEO Tags

#ClaudeAI #VSCode #CodePrediction #CodeCompletion #DeveloperProductivity #OpenSourceAI #AIInCoding #AnthropicClaude #GPTvsClaude #PromptEngineering #CopilotAlternative #AItoolsForDevelopers

🧪 From Frustration to Flow: I Built a 1-Click Unsecured Browser Launcher for Developers

Abhishek Verma — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 02:14:08 +0000

Tired of Chrome blocking your `localhost`? You're not alone. Here's how I built a simple Mac utility to save time and frustration.

🚨 The Problem: Chrome Makes Local Dev Harder Than It Should Be

If you’re a developer working on web apps, especially during the UAT or testing phase, this scenario will feel painfully familiar:

You run your app on http://localhost
Chrome or Brave blocks it due to security policies
You scramble for flags like --disable-web-security, or worse…
You open terminal, copy-paste some arcane command from StackOverflow, and pray it works

💡 It’s a hassle—especially when you have to do it multiple times a day across different test scenarios.

💡 The Solution: `command-browser`

To scratch my own itch, I built command-browser, a pseudo app for macOS that opens an unsecured Chrome or Brave window with a double-click.

No terminals.
No flags.
No Google search history saying “chrome allow insecure localhost”.

Just click → test → done.

🔧 How It Works

The concept is intentionally simple:

I wrote .command files that launch Chrome/Brave with the right flags:
- --disable-web-security
- --user-data-dir
Then wrapped them using Platypus into lightweight macOS apps
So now, clicking the app icon does the work for you

That’s it. It lives on your desktop like a native utility. And yes, you can run both Chrome and Brave versions independently.

✨ Features

✅ 1-Click unsecured Chrome or Brave browser
✅ No terminal commands – fully GUI-based
✅ Super lightweight – no daemon, no background processes
✅ Perfect for frontend/backend testing of local/insecure APIs
✅ Fully open-source and customizable

⏱ Why This Matters

As developers, we talk a lot about productivity.
But we ignore the 30 seconds here and 1 minute there we lose to friction — especially for tasks we repeat daily.

I built command-browser to cut that friction. And honestly?
It’s been a quiet little superpower in my dev workflow.

📦 Get Started in 2 Minutes

🔗 GitHub Repo

Just clone it, give executable permissions to the .command file, or use the prebuilt .app versions — and you’re good to go.

🙌 Let’s Improve It Together

This project is open source, intentionally minimal, and built for the community.
Got ideas for:

Security sandboxing?
Electron wrapper?
Auto-detection of browser paths?

💬 Drop a PR or an issue — I’m all ears.

👨‍💻 TL;DR

If you’re a developer who’s tired of Chrome/Brave blocking your local testing flow, command-browser is for you.
Save time, avoid terminal fatigue, and ship faster.

👉 Check it out on GitHub
⭐ Star it if you find it helpful
💬 Comment if you have feedback
🔁 Share it with that teammate who still types the flag every time