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Hexana — VS Code Extension Documentation

Hexana is a Visual Studio Code extension by JetBrains for inspecting and running WebAssembly binaries — and, as of 0.2.0, native binaries (ELF, Mach-O, PE) as well. Open any .wasm file and Hexana replaces the default editor with a Compose-for-Web webview: a virtual-scrolling hex viewer alongside up to 11 structural-analysis tabs (Summary, Exports, Imports, Functions, Data, Custom, Top, Monos, Garbage, Modules, WAT). Native binaries open with the same hex + structure layout. Run modules through Wasmtime, WAMR, or GraalVM, debug them (experimental, LLVM 22.1+), resolve Component Model dependencies automatically, and drive analysis from an AI tool over the on-demand-downloaded MCP server.

Looking for the IntelliJ Platform plugin? See the JetBrains IDEs section. The VS Code and JetBrains products share the same WASM parser core but differ in language-support depth, run integrations, and target audience.

What's in this directory

File Audience Purpose
getting-started.md Users Install the extension, open a .wasm file, find the main panels.
features.md Users Complete capability reference.
analysis-tabs.md Users Per-tab reference for all 11 analysis panels.
run-support.md Users Run Core Wasm and Component Model binaries through Wasmtime, WAMR, or GraalVM, including composition with wasm-tools / wac and the experimental debug path.
component-model.md Users Component Model support — dependency resolution and nested-module navigation.
settings.md Users VS Code settings Hexana contributes (hexana.wasmtimePath, hexana.enableStatistics, hexana.mcp.javaHome).
troubleshooting.md Users Common failure modes and resolutions.
changelog.md All Release notes.

Version and compatibility

  • Extension version: 0.2.0.
  • VS Code requirement: ^1.102.0 — required for the MCP-server registration API used by the on-demand MCP integration. Older 0.0.x releases ran on 1.85+.
  • Optional Java: 21 or newer for the MCP server. The server is downloaded on demand on first MCP use; set hexana.mcp.javaHome to point at a specific JDK if JAVA_HOME / PATH do not surface one.
  • Optional LLVM: 22.1 or newer for the experimental debug path (Wasmtime + WAMR, lldb under the hood).
  • Distribution: Visual Studio Marketplace (marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=JetBrains.hexana-wasm) and Open VSX (open-vsx.org).
  • Companion: a JetBrains IntelliJ plugin, documented here.

Supported editors

The extension targets the VS Code Custom Editor API, Webview API, and MCP-server-registration API. It works in:

  • Visual Studio Code 1.102+
  • VS Code Insiders
  • Cursor (a fork of VS Code) — provided it exposes the MCP-server-registration API at the 1.102 baseline
  • Code OSS / VSCodium when installed from Open VSX
  • Windsurf, Continue.dev, and other VS Code-based editors that respect the standard extension API at the 1.102 baseline

Some features that depend on VS Code's terminal, filesystem, or MCP providers may behave differently across forks; report fork-specific issues at the tracker.

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