Desktop shell tour
A guided lap around the chrome: the sidebar, the status bar, the shortcuts, and the small controls the panels sit inside.
Agent Dev lives in a VS Code-based desktop shell. Most days you will work in the chat panel and the dashboard — but the chrome around them carries real controls, and knowing where they live saves the hunting.
The Wingman sidebar
Start with the Wingman icon in the activity bar. It opens the Wingman sidebar: one column of shortcut rows for the everyday actions — New chat, Home, Connect Claude Code, Files, AI tools, Automations, Feedback, and Local AI CLIs. Before a workspace is open, the sidebar shows welcome links that point you at the same starting moves.
Docs and restart services
Two icons sit in the sidebar title. The book opens the Axelera website. Restart services re-checks the backend and reloads the dashboard; on a local backend it also restarts the Docker services. It does not restart an Agent Dev run that has stopped responding — start a new task for that.
Status bar and other chrome
| Where | What it is |
|---|---|
⌂ Mode status bar item | A one-click shortcut to Wingman Home in the bottom status bar. Wherever you are in the shell, Home is a click away. |
| Loading screen | The branded screen while the shell starts. If it lingers, the backend is still coming up — give it a moment before reaching for restarts. |
| About dialog | Shows the app version — the first thing to include in a bug report. Open it from the application menu. |
| Axelera Dark themes | The bundled default look. Prefer something else? Switch it the standard VS Code way with the Color Theme picker. |
| Docs & repo-file shortcuts | Commands that open the docs site, repository docs, and workspace files directly. Search for Wingman in the command palette to see them all. |
| Automations quick pick | One menu to run or configure workspace tasks: pick a task to run it, edit tasks.json to change it, and jump to the terminal it runs in. |