Thread

VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)

310 points · 218 comments · Rapzid

10000truths · 1790201673 · focus · HN ↗
So a program that is specifically designed to edit files and run arbitrary commands on a remote machine... can do so. Not sure where the bananas part comes in. Sending a binary over SSH/SFTP might sound weird at first glance, but VSCode can't assume that your remote machine can access the wider internet, and it needs a reliable way to bootstrap the agent on the remote. Shipping it over the SSH tunnel is the natural solution.
1. mhitza · 1790203364 · focus · HN ↗
  Am I that much of? My reading of the following was that the remotely executed agent pushes commands back to your local vscode.
  > [...] VSCode mounts a full-scale invasion: it runs a Bash snippet stager that downloads an agent, including a binary installation of Node. [...]
  > It establishes a WebSockets connection back to your running VSCode front-end. The underlying protocol on that connection can:

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.