Stop Guessing Ports. Start Coding.

The missing visual dashboard for your local development environment. Manage all your dev servers right inside VS Code.

I built this dev server manager because I got tired of losing minutes to invisible local processes and occupied ports. The problem was never "how to run dev." The problem was visibility. I needed one panel that showed what was alive, what was dead, and what needed to be killed before work could continue. That meant a built-in port scanner inside my vscode extension workflow instead of another terminal ritual.

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I do not trust local environments that I cannot see.
ORIGIN_SOURCE: Bernhard Rieder
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Before you continue //

If your terminal says a port is in use but you cannot identify the process quickly, start with the dashboard first. Visibility beats guesswork.

Why this dev server manager exists

When a local stack grows beyond one app, the old "open terminal tabs and remember everything" method collapses.

Pain points this guide solves:

orphaned dev processes after crashes
silent port collisions in parallel projects
monorepo commands that hide which package owns which port
wasted context switching between terminal and editor

Docs Layer

Core capabilities

Port scanner: detects common development ports and active listeners
Visual dashboard: one view for process status and control
Start/stop controls: trigger scripts without hunting command history
Monorepo awareness: detects Turborepo and workspace structures
Auto refresh: updates every few seconds for live state

Server Cook dev server manager dashboard. — Server Cook dashboard showing active local servers and process status in VS Code.

System Overview

Mission Control for Localhost

Get a bird's-eye view of all your servers in a beautiful grid layout. See status, ports, and URLs at a glance with one-click controls.

Server Cook Dashboard - Visual grid view showing all server processes with status indicators in the IDE

Installation

VS Code Marketplace (recommended)

Open VS Code
Open Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X)
Search for Server Cook
Click Install

Cursor and Antigravity (Open VSX / VSIX)

Open Extensions view
Use Install from VSIX... if you downloaded a package
Or install from Open VSX listing directly
Reload editor if prompted

Setup

Quick start workflow

Open Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P)
Run Server Cook: Open Server Dashboard
Confirm detected servers and ports
Start/stop processes from the dashboard controls

bash

Monorepo and Turborepo support

This dev server manager detects turbo.json, workspace configs, and package-level scripts to map processes to the correct app.

Detection model:

identify monorepo shape
discover workspace packages
resolve dev scripts to executable commands
map active ports back to owning packages

Supported ports

The extension scans common development ports such as 3000, 3001, 3002-3003, 4200, 5173, 8080, 8000, and 5000.

Requirements

VS Code v1.74.0+
Cursor (VS Code-compatible)
Antigravity (VS Code-compatible)

Troubleshooting pattern

Fast recovery pattern //

If a process will not stop, terminate it from your OS task manager and rerun detection. Then restart only the package you need.

Build from source

bash

1npm install
2npm run compile
3npm run package

Final note

I built this to end the "where is that process even running" cycle. Use it when local state gets noisy and you want fast, visual control without ritual.

INSTALL FOR VS CODE

INSTALL FOR CURSOR & ANTIGRAVITY

Server Cook| Notes

Dev Server Manager Documentation