Paseo Context Mode

A Paseo sidebar and provider integration for Context Mode. It bundles a pinned Context Mode runtime, shows health and savings, and activates Context Mode for supported Paseo agents without replacing existing provider-native integrations.

Demo

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/43065ede-3fbd-4a9c-b1bb-79d327d90d9b

Screenshots

These previews were captured from an isolated Paseo test daemon with Context Mode installed on a disposable home. The browser opened the real plugin surface on the daemon's Tailscale address, and both PNGs are 2× captures of the live data-backed UI.

Wide surface

Compact surface

Current scope

• Bundles Context Mode as a runtime dependency; a separately installed global executable remains optional.
• Resolves a configured absolute executable first, then the daemon's PATH, then the bundled runtime.
• Shows Context Mode version, structured diagnostics, provider activation, storage roots, lifetime savings, activity, categories, and indexed sources.
• Reads Context Mode 1.0.169 SQLite databases in query-only mode, honors active WAL state, isolates corrupt databases, and reports partial coverage instead of mutating schemas.
• Injects the bundled stdio MCP server into new supported agents through Paseo's agent.create hook.
• Injects provider identity and an existing provider-specific storage root on create, resume, refresh, and import.
• Preserves existing MCP servers and explicit environment overrides.
• Prefers detected native provider integrations to avoid duplicate ctx_* tools.
• Reuses existing provider-specific databases. It does not merge session databases across providers because Context Mode intentionally isolates their session identities.
• Provides provider- and project-scoped knowledge search, local-path indexing, URL fetch/index, indexed-source visibility, and an Insight link.
• Requires an explicit provider, project path, scope review, and second confirmation before purge. Purge remains delegated to Context Mode's own MCP contract.
• Returns structured install and provider-specific upgrade argv for review; Paseo never executes those commands automatically.
• Adds a per-agent composer shortcut to the Context Mode surface.

Context Mode currently couples sessions, stats, and indexed content under CONTEXT_MODE_DIR. Until upstream supports separate session and content roots, this plugin keeps storage provider-scoped instead of risking cross-provider session contamination.

Prerequisites

Node.js 24 or later is required by this plugin. The bundled Context Mode runtime is installed with the plugin. Native provider integrations such as OMP's plugin remain recommended because generic MCP injection provides tools but cannot add provider-native lifecycle hooks.

The plugin depends on the upstream context-mode npm package under the Elastic License 2.0. See NOTICE.

Install

Install the published npm package on the daemon host:

paseo plugin install npm:@omercnet/paseo-context-mode

Update an npm installation to the latest published release:

paseo plugin update context-mode

The npm install and update flow requires Paseo 0.9.

Commands and limits

The daemon launches Context Mode directly with an argv array and no shell. MCP calls cover diagnostics, raw stats fallback, search, indexing, fetch/index, and explicitly confirmed purge. Each subprocess has a 12-second timeout and a 192 KiB combined output cap. Status is cached for 10 seconds and raw stats for 5 seconds.

Install and upgrade actions return separate program and argument fields. They are displayed for review and never executed by the plugin. Older Context Mode builds that lack required tools are reported as unsupported. Missing executables, launch failures, timeouts, protocol errors, output limits, unsupported database schemas, locked databases, and partial database scans are surfaced as typed states or warnings.

Development

bun install
bun run typecheck
bun run test
bun run check

Licensing and attribution

The plugin is MIT licensed. Context Mode is a separate project by Mert Koseoglu and contributors, distributed under the Elastic License 2.0. See NOTICE.