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Settings Reference

AETHER Coder adds no settings to Visual Studio Code's own settings screen. Searching the editor's preferences finds nothing, which catches almost everyone out at least once. Every option lives in the extension's own Settings view, inside the panel.

Open it with the gear icon in the AETHER Coder panel header. The view is organised into tabs — API Configuration, Features, Browser, Terminal, General, Remote Config, About and Debug — and this article follows that order.

The Settings view showing the API Configuration, Features, Browser and Terminal tabs

The Settings view showing the API Configuration, Features, Browser and Terminal tabs

API Configuration

Your connection to the platform. These values come from AETHER — your administrator supplies the URL and the agent's API key, and you generate your own access token — so once they are entered they rarely need changing. See Connect to AETHER.

Setting Effect
API Provider Must stay on the AETHER connection. The other options in the dropdown are not part of this product.
Base URL Your platform's code endpoint, ending /api/code/v1.
API Key The agent's API key. Decides which agent answers.
Access Token Your personal aeth_… token. Decides who the session is attributed to.
Model ID Must be aether. A fixed identifier, not a model name.
Custom headers Extra HTTP headers sent with every request, for a proxy or gateway that requires them.

Below those sits a model-configuration group. The real model belongs to the agent and is resolved on the platform, so these values only tell the extension what to assume:

Setting Default Effect
Supports images true Whether images may be attached to a message.
Context window size 128000 The transcript size the extension plans around.
Max output tokens -1 -1 leaves the limit to the platform.
Input price per 1M tokens 0 Feeds the in-editor cost estimate only.
Output price per 1M tokens 0 Feeds the in-editor cost estimate only.
Temperature 0 The sampling temperature requested for a task.

Note: the two price fields drive the figure shown next to a task and nothing else. Your actual spend is calculated on the platform — see Limits & Known Behaviour.

Features

Four groups of toggles. These are the ones worth understanding, because they change how the agent behaves rather than where it connects.

Agent

Setting Default Effect
Subagents Off Lets the agent hand a self-contained piece of work to a subordinate run.
Native Tool Call On Uses the model's own tool-calling format instead of the text protocol.
Parallel Tool Calling On Allows more than one tool call in a single turn.
Strict Plan Mode Off Blocks file edits while you are in Plan mode.
Auto Compact Off Condenses a long conversation automatically as it nears the context limit.
Focus Chain On (interval 6) Keeps a running checklist for the task, with a reminder interval — how many messages pass before the agent re-reads it.

Editor

Setting Default Effect
Feature Tips On Shows occasional tips in the panel.
Background Edit Off Applies diffs without taking editor focus.
Checkpoints On Saves a restore point behind each step of a task.
AETHER Coder Web Tools On Enables the agent's built-in web tooling.
Worktrees Off Enables git worktree support for tasks.

Experimental

Setting Default Effect
Yolo Mode Off Approves everything — every edit, command and tool call — with no prompt.
Double-Check Completion Off Has the agent verify its own work before it declares a task complete.
Lazy Teammate Mode Off An experimental change to the agent's working behaviour.

Everything in this group may change between releases. Leave it off unless you have a specific reason, and read the warning about Yolo Mode in Running Commands & Auto-Approve before you turn it on.

Advanced

Setting Default Effect
Hooks On Enables the hooks defined for the project in .clinerules/hooks.
MCP display mode Plain Text How MCP tool calls and their responses are shown in the conversation.

Browser

Controls the browser the agent drives when it checks its own work.

Setting Effect
Viewport size The window size the agent browses at, which decides the responsive layout it sees.
Remote browser host The address of a browser to attach to. Default http://localhost:9222.
Chrome executable path A specific browser binary to launch instead of the detected one.
Chrome arguments Extra arguments passed when launching the browser.
Connection status Whether the extension can currently reach that browser.

Terminal

Controls how commands run. If a command appears to hang, this is the tab to open.

Setting Effect
Default terminal profile Which shell the agent's commands run in.
Shell integration timeout How many seconds to wait for the shell to report that a command finished.
Aggressive terminal reuse Whether the agent reuses existing terminals rather than opening new ones.
Terminal execution mode How commands are dispatched to the shell.
Output line limit How many lines of output are captured back into the conversation.

General

Preferred language sets the language the agent writes its explanations in.

Remote Config

Settings your organisation manages centrally. Where a value is set here, it is applied for everyone and cannot be changed on an individual machine.

Debug

Diagnostic tools, for use when someone supporting you asks for them. Nothing in normal use requires this tab.

Remote

A QR code that opens the Remote Developer View — your panel mirrored into a browser — plus the same link in text form. Nothing here is a setting: the tab reads the Base URL and Access Token from API Configuration and draws the code from them, so if no token is configured there is nothing to scan.

Warning: the code encodes your personal access token. Treat the tab as you would a password field: do not screenshot it and do not screen-share it.

Note: a setting that appears locked, with an indicator beside it, is one your organisation manages centrally through Remote Config. It is not a fault and it is not something to work around — the value is deliberate, and your administrator changes it in AETHER rather than you changing it here.

Next steps