jupyterlab_ai_code_assistants_extension

A full launcher and manager for every AI code assistant in JupyterLab - Claude Code, Codex, Kimi and Gemini. Start, resume, fork, switch, and clean up CLI sessions from a side panel per assistant - one click lands you in the right terminal with the assistant already running, no duplicate tabs, no UUID hunting. One install replaces the separate jupyterlab_claude_code_extension, jupyterlab_codex_extension and jupyterlab_kimi_code_extension packages and migrates their settings and favourites automatically.

Why this extension

One principle: the vendors know best how to build the agent harness; we know best how to make it work in JupyterLab.

Chat-panel extensions re-implement the agent loop and trail the real tool. This one runs the genuine, unmodified CLIs in JupyterLab terminals - skills, subagents, MCP, hooks, plan mode, every release the day it lands. The extension owns the JupyterLab side:

• Launching - new, resumed, or forked sessions, with or without permission prompts, no wrapper shell, correctly sized before the assistant draws its first frame
• Finding - every project in one panel per assistant: favourites, search, live activity
• Reusing - clicking a session focuses its existing terminal, never a duplicate
• Managing - parallel conversations: switch, fork with a name, delete - no --resume pickers, no raw UUIDs

Features

• One install, every assistant - Claude Code, Codex, Kimi and Gemini from a single package, each with its own right-side panel wearing its official mark
• Provider registry - assistant-specific behaviour lives in one module per assistant behind capability flags; no core file names an assistant, and adding one touches no core file
• Joint settings page - one settings section covering all assistants, with a per-assistant toggle (all on by default); toggling takes effect live, no JupyterLab reload
• Three-section side panel - Favorites, Recent, and All projects, each scrolling independently
• One-click resume - click a row to jump back into that session in a terminal; an open terminal for the project is reused instead of duplicated
• Conversation switcher - a right-click "Switch and Manage Sessions" submenu lists a project's other conversations by name and short id with last-activity time; "Manage Sessions..." opens a searchable popup over the full list with multi-select delete and per-row open and copy-id buttons
• Branch session - fork the current conversation into a new named session via the right-click menu; each assistant forks its own way (Claude's native --fork-session, Codex's codex fork, server-side copies for Kimi and Gemini) behind the same menu item
• Launch modes under each assistant's own name - Claude's skip-permissions, Codex's approval bypass, Kimi's --yolo, Gemini's YOLO and approval modes; unsafe variants carry a warning glyph
• Coloured terminal tabs - each session's colour tints its terminal tab via the companion jupyterlab_colourful_tab_extension (installed automatically). Assistants without a colour concept get a stable colour from the extension's own store, and a branched session inherits its parent's colour
• Favorites - star projects you keep coming back to via the right-click menu; favourites from the standalone extensions are migrated on first run
• Remove and clean up - drop a project's history or a project's extra parallel sessions from the right-click menu, confirmation dialog first; removed files honour JupyterLab's "move files to trash" setting
• Activity at a glance - each row shows its last activity in an aligned column; rows active within the last minute light up, rows idle for over a week dim, and rows with parallel conversations show a branch icon with the count
• Remote control indicator and background agents (Claude) - a green dot marks sessions actively under remote control, and a conversation held by a running background agent shows a bg chip; clicking attaches to the agent instead of copying it
• Search - fuzzy filter per panel, toggled by the funnel button
• Presentation modes - label rows by session name, folder name, or path relative to the JupyterLab root
• Conflict-safe upgrade - if a retired standalone extension is still installed, its panel wins and this extension stands down for that assistant instead of showing a duplicate
• Auto-disabled when absent - an assistant whose CLI is not on PATH does not show a panel

Requirements

• JupyterLab >= 4.0.0
• Python >= 3.10
• At least one assistant CLI on PATH: claude, codex, kimi, or gemini

Install

Developers must install via the project Makefile (which orchestrates clean, build, and pip install of the resulting wheel):

make install

End-users can install the published package from PyPI:

pip install jupyterlab_ai_code_assistants_extension

[!WARNING] package.json pins webpack: 5.106.0 and chalk: 4.1.2 in both resolutions and overrides. Do not remove these. webpack >= 5.106.1 changed its module-federation share identifier format and crashes the unmaintained license-webpack-plugin (split('=')[1].trim()) that @jupyterlab/builder injects into every production build; the duplicate chalk@2.4.2 pulled by duplicate-package-checker-webpack-plugin crashes on Node 24+ in the build-isolation install. Without the pins, make publish and CI fail on python -m build.

Migrating from the standalone extensions

This package supersedes jupyterlab_claude_code_extension, jupyterlab_codex_extension and jupyterlab_kimi_code_extension. On first run it carries their settings and favourites over automatically; uninstall the standalones once you are ready:

pip uninstall jupyterlab_claude_code_extension jupyterlab_codex_extension jupyterlab_kimi_code_extension

While a standalone extension is still installed, its panel is shown and this extension's panel for that assistant stays out of the way.

Uninstall

pip uninstall jupyterlab_ai_code_assistants_extension