Running scripts

Caution

Script are executed in the context of your environment. Only run trusted scripts.

Visual Studio Code

In Visual Studio Code, the location where you start running a script determines the entries in the env.files variable.

Single file

• Right click on a file in the Explorer and select Run GenAIScript….
• Or right click in a file editor and select Run GenAIScript….

The env.files array will contain a single element with the selected file.

Folder

• Right click on a folder in the Explorer and select **Run GenAIScript…**s.

The env.files array will contain all nested files under that folder.

Root folder

To run the script on the root folder, right click under the files.

GitHub Copilot Chat

You can run scripts in the GitHub Copilot Chat through the @genaiscript participant.

Default files

You can specify default file or files to run the script on. When you run the script from the script file itself, or with the command line without file arguments, the default files will be used.

script({
    files: "path/to/files*.md",
})
...

Tasks

The GenAIScript extension exposes each script as a Task automatically.

The task launches the cli and runs the selected script and pass the path to the current opened editor.

• Open the command palette Ctrl+Shift+P and search “Tasks: Run Task”
• Select the genaiscript task provider
• Select the script you want to run

Note

When running a script as a task, the result will not be visible in the GenAIScript trace window.

Analyze results

By default, GenAIScript opens the output preview which shows a rendered view of the LLM output (assuming the LLM produces markdown).

The GenAIScript view provides an overview of the trace of the latest run.

You can also use the Trace to review the each transformation step of the script execution.

• Click on the GenAIScript status bar icon to various options to investigate results.

Command Line

Start by creating a script using the command line.

• JavaScript

npx genaiscript scripts create proofreader

• TypeScript “—typescript”

npx genaiscript scripts create proofreader --typescript

The scripts create command also drops a TypeScript definition file (genaiscript.d.ts and tsconfig.json) to enable type checking and auto-completion in your editor. If you need to regenerate the TypeScript definition file, use the scripts fix

npx genaiscript scripts fix

Use the run command to execute a script from the command line.

npx genaiscript run proofreader path/to/files*.md

Tip

If you plan to use the command line extensively, it’s probably best to install it locally as npx startup time can be slow.

• as a development dependency

npm install -D genaiscript

• as a global package

npm install -g genaiscript

You can start a playground to interactively run scripts through a similar web interface as the Visual Studio Code extension.

npx genaiscript serve

Next steps

Debug your scripts using the Visual Studio Code Debugger!