Aura Wire setup guide

What you install

• Aura Wire for VS Code — the product. Editor-tab Agent and Ask chat, provider and model picker, Wire dashboards in the editor. Finds or starts the local Host, which runs the pipeline and an OpenAI-compatible /v1 on loopback. No admin rights, certificate, or driver.
• desktop command center (optional, Windows) — expands the same Host beyond the curated VS Code boards: full Live Traffic and Session Timeline, Sandbox, Privacy Audit, full dashboards and Settings, plus the wire CLI. Comes with the Windows installer. Per-user install; no certificate, driver, or Windows service.

The Host runs on Windows today. A macOS Host is in progress; the extension installs on a Mac, but chat cannot start there until it ships. The desktop command center and wire CLI are Windows-only.

Prerequisites

• VS Code 1.85+ or a compatible fork (Insiders, VSCodium, Cursor, Windsurf)
• Credentials for the providers you want to chat with — OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Azure, a Cursor / Copilot / Claude agent runtime, or local Ollama (no key)
• For the desktop command center: Windows and the Windows installer
• Optional: a local Aura Terran install if you want the Terran RAG bridge (paid Terran includes the Wire bridge entitlement)

Install the extension

1. Download the .zip from the download page (or Extras) and extract it. The archive holds the .vsix — do not install with Visual Studio’s VSIX Installer.
2. In VS Code (not Visual Studio), open Extensions → ⋯ → Install from VSIX… and pick the .vsix. When a newer build is on the feed, chat shows Update, or run Aura Wire: Check for updates.
3. Open the Aura Wire sidebar. The extension finds a running Host or starts one; if no Host is on this machine yet, it downloads one in-editor — no UAC.

Host data (telemetry and settings) is stored under %LOCALAPPDATA%\AuraWire on Windows and survives upgrades. You never need to run the desktop app for the extension to work.

First chat

1. Click New chat in the Aura Wire sidebar — the conversation opens in an editor tab
2. Pick a mode: Agent can edit the workspace and run shell commands (with approval); Aura Wire (Ask) is read-only
3. Pick a provider and model. Cursor, Copilot, and Claude are agent runtimes; OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and Ollama are HTTP destinations. Set keys once in Aura Wire Settings (open from the sidebar) — the extension ships no vendor SDKs
4. Send. Every turn goes through the local Host /v1, so Observe records it when licensed (included in the trial; $39 after) and any enabled pipeline stage applies
5. Open Live Traffic from the sidebar — the session shows IDE aura-wire-vscode with your open folder as the project
6. Optional: activate a paid license under Settings → License (new installs start a 7-day Professional trial with the first chat)

By default Aura Wire observes only when Observe is licensed (included in the 7-day trial; $39 after — not free). Guard, Router, Compress, Terran, and Advise start off until you enable them under Pipeline. When enabled, Guard defaults to Relaxed/Warn, Router to Suggest, and Advise to Dashboard delivery — never block, rewrite, or inject until you choose. Try Sandbox in dry-run mode to exercise the stages on canned prompts.

desktop command center — expanded Host UI (Windows)

The Windows installer adds the desktop command center: the same local Host the extension already uses, with additional screens and capabilities beyond the curated in-editor boards. Nothing in the extension needs it — chat and Observe still work in VS Code — but the desktop app is where the fuller Host surface lives.

1. Run AuraWire-Setup-1.7.30.exe from the download page. It is a per-user install of the desktop app, a local Host, and the wire CLI, and it adds the extension to editors it detects. No certificate, driver, or Windows service is installed.
2. Open Aura Wire from the Start menu. If the extension already started a Host, the desktop app attaches to it; otherwise it starts one.
3. Use the expanded surface: full Live Traffic and Session timeline (including compare), Sandbox, Privacy Audit, the full dashboard catalog, Working samples / History on pipeline stages, and Settings for provider keys, licensing, retention, and updates.
4. From a terminal, wire --help shows the CLI, which talks to the same loopback /v1.

The desktop app auto-updates from the Halo Softworks release feed (Settings → Desktop → Updates). A Host started by the extension updates in-editor instead.

Pipeline stages (opt-in)

• Observe — continuous sanitized telemetry when licensed (included in the trial; $39 after — not free)
• Sandbox — dry-run or live multi-chat to try the pipeline before IDE setup
• Guard — warn, redact, or block secrets and protected concepts in requests
• Router — suggest or apply model/provider routes with cross-API translation and tool-aware matching
• Compress — context-aware savings: cache-aware aliasing, topic-shift compaction, session recall, attachment RAG, image right-sizing / screenshot-to-text, and optional output-efficiency prefixes
• Terran — inject local corpus chunks into proxied chat via Direct RAG REST (fail-open when Terran is down)
• Advise — prompting coach from your own traffic (dashboard coaching with Observe / trial; Inject delivery needs Advise Inject or Professional)

Stages apply to every door — editor-tab chat, and wire CLI and SDK /v1 clients. Use each stage’s Working samples tab under Pipeline to run canned prompts and verify behavior. Optionally set Settings → Pipeline scope to limit mutations to selected IDEs or projects.

Terran bridge (optional)

Wire’s Terran pipeline stage is a bridge to Aura Terran, a separate product (sold separately). Buying the Terran RAG injection module or Professional does not include Terran. To inject RAG from an installed Terran:

1. Install and run Terran with Direct RAG REST enabled (default base URL http://127.0.0.1:41800)
2. In Aura Wire, open Pipeline → Aura Terran and enable the stage
3. On Connection, set the REST URL, namespace, and search options; wait for the IDE gRPC injection map (e.g. Cursor StreamChat) to show Ready

Editor-tab chat and other /v1 clients are enriched immediately. If Terran is unavailable, traffic continues without injection (fail-open). Index once in Terran; enrich every Wire chat without changing IDE base URLs.

Troubleshooting

• Visual Studio VSIX Installer shows “Install Failed” — you opened the .vsix (or an extracted file) outside VS Code. Use the site .zip download, extract it, then install from inside VS Code: Extensions → ⋯ → Install from VSIX…
• Chat says Host is missing or starting — the extension fetches Host in-editor; allow the download and wait for ready. Check network access to aura-wire-releases.halosoftworks.com. The Host runs on Windows today. A macOS Host is in progress; the extension installs on a Mac, but chat cannot start there until it ships.
• Provider missing from the picker — install and configure that provider in Aura Wire Settings; hover the picker for the hint
• Nothing in Live Traffic — send a chat from the extension (or wire CLI) and confirm the Host is ready in the sidebar; use Send test event on the Live Traffic toolbar to record one sanitized row without calling a provider
• Updates not found — the extension checks the Halo Softworks release feed for the VSIX and the in-editor Host sidecar (chat Update or Aura Wire: Check for updates); a Host from the Windows installer updates with the desktop app (Settings → Desktop → Updates)
• Privacy concerns — run Privacy Audit from the dashboard to verify no prompt canaries appear on disk

Windows installer URL used by this site: /api/download/aura-wire/setup