I spent way too many late nights last month trying to get my React hooks to play nice with a basic API wrapper that kept losing my place every time I switched files. Honestly, you gotta be careful with those simple marketplace extensions because they often just dump your whole active file into the prompt, which burns through your OpenAI credits way faster than you would think. I learned that the hard way when I got a surprise bill for basically nothing. If you want something that handles context without the mess, I would suggest looking at Sourcegraph Cody AI Coding Assistant. It has been a lifesaver for my larger projects because it actually indexes your local codebase properly instead of just looking at the open tab.

• Make sure to check the indexing status in the VS Code status bar before you start asking deep questions. If it is still scanning, it is just gonna guess.
• Be careful with how many files you reference at once. Even with GPT-4o, if you select too much, the model starts losing the plot on the specific logic you actually need fixed.
• Double check your API usage limits in the OpenAI dashboard so you dont get a surprise halfway through your Friday push. I usually try to feed it only the relevant component and its specific types file. Keeping it focused like that keeps the answers much more reliable. Just watch out for the hallucination spikes when you ask it to refactor across three different directories... it can get a bit overconfident if you let it roam too far without supervision.

I've been through the same mess with the marketplace and it's a minefield. Most of those wrappers are honestly just hobby projects that break after two updates or lack any real privacy standards. Since you already have a key and need deep context for a React project, I'd suggest skipping the random stuff and going with Continue Dev Continue Open Source AI Assistant. It's probably the most stable option I've used over the years for actually managing codebase context without the manual copy-paste routine. The reason it works better than a simple chat window is the local indexing. It builds a vector database of your files so you can just type @codebase or @file and it actually pulls the relevant snippets into the prompt. If you're using OpenAI GPT-4o API, just be a bit careful with the context length tho because it can eat through credits fast if you're indexing huge node_modules folders by accident. Always make sure your ignore rules are set up right before you let it scan everything. I still keep GitHub Copilot Individual Subscription active for the basic ghost text autocomplete because it's just faster for repetitive boilerplate, but for the heavy lifting and refactoring where you need GPT-4o to see three different components at once, Continue is the winner. It feels way more professional and less like a hacked-together side project. Just avoid the fly-by-night extensions that don't have a clear privacy policy, especially if you're working on anything proprietary. Stick to the ones with a real dev team behind them.

Saw this thread earlier but finally have a sec to reply... honestly if you want that deep context for your React stuff you should just move over to a dedicated AI editor like Cursor AI Code Editor. Its basically a VS Code fork so all your favorite extensions and themes just carry over but the AI integration is honestly amazing! I love how it indexes your entire codebase so you can just ask questions about multiple files at once without the copy-paste nightmare. I stopped messing with those random marketplace wrappers months ago because they just dont compare. Just grab the latest build from their site and you cant go wrong. It makes handling context feel so natural and it works great with your own keys too. It seriously saved my sanity on my last project!

Re: "Saw this thread earlier but finally have a..." - yeah, finally catching up on this conversation myself. I definitely agree with the sentiment that jumping to a dedicated editor can be a game changer, but you really gotta be careful with how they handle your local data. I went down a rabbit hole a few months back with a tool that promised it could read my whole React project without any lag. It was awesome for like two days... then I realized it was basically caching my files and not updating the index when I swapped branches. I spent a whole afternoon debugging code that the AI thought was there but actually wasnt. Total nightmare. Make sure you check how often these tools re-index your project because if you're working fast, a stale index is worse than no index at all. I learned the hard way that deep context is only useful if its actually accurate context. Might want to stick to something that lets you manually refresh the index or has a really solid background watcher, otherwise you'll be fighting ghost bugs all Friday night.