Project Info Panel — Lantern Control Extension

Date: 2026-03-28 Status: Approved Scope: VS Code extension (tooling/vscode-extension/)

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Summary

Add a read-only "Project Info" dashboard view to the Lantern Control sidebar. It shows the current milestone progress, git branch, open PR for the branch, and app version — all at a glance without leaving the editor.

Motivation

Developers need quick visibility into where the project stands (which milestone, how far along) and where their current branch fits (PR status, version). Currently this requires switching to GitHub or running CLI commands.

Design

New View: lanternControl.projectInfo

Positioned first in the Lantern Control sidebar (before Quickstart).

Tree structure:

▼ Project Info
  ├── Milestone: Prototype          47% (14/30)
  ├── Branch: copilot/attach-tasks-...
  ├── PR: #301 — feat: auto-assign...   OPEN
  ├── Version: 0.1.0
  └── Last refreshed: 2 min ago

Tree Items

Item	Icon	Description	Tooltip	Click Action
Milestone	$(milestone)	47% (14/30)	Full milestone name, open vs closed issue counts	None
Branch	$(git-branch)	Full branch name	Branch name	None
PR	$(git-pull-request)	#301 — title STATE	PR title, number, URL	Opens PR in browser
Version	$(tag)	Version from root package.json	Version string	None
Last refreshed	$(clock)	Relative time since last fetch	Absolute timestamp	None

When no PR exists for the current branch: PR: No open PR with $(git-pull-request) icon.

Milestone Detection

Fetch all open milestones via gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/milestones. Select the "active" milestone using this heuristic: the milestone with the highest total issue count (open_issues + closed_issues) that still has open_issues > 0. This correctly identifies "Prototype" today and will naturally shift as work moves to Alpha/Beta.

Data Sources

Data	Source	Method
Milestone + progress	GitHub API	gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/milestones via execSync
Current branch	Local git	getCurrentBranch() (existing lib/gitBranch.js)
Open PR for branch	GitHub CLI	gh pr list --head <branch> --json number,title,url,state via execSync
App version	Local filesystem	readPackageJson() (existing lib/packageReader.js)

Refresh Behavior

• On activation: Full fetch of all data
• On branch change: Piggyback on existing 10-second branch polling in extension.js. When branch changes, trigger a full refresh.
• Manual: Refresh button in the view title bar (standard lanternControl.refreshProjectInfo command)
• No periodic auto-refresh for GitHub data (avoids rate limits, data changes infrequently)

Error Handling

If gh CLI is unavailable or authentication fails, milestone and PR items display "unavailable" as their description. Branch and version always work since they are local. No errors thrown — the panel degrades gracefully.

New Files

• src/providers/ProjectInfoProvider.js — TreeDataProvider following the same pattern as QuickstartProvider.js. Contains ProjectInfoItem (simple TreeItem subclass) and the provider class.
• src/lib/githubData.js — Wraps gh CLI calls. Exports fetchActiveMilestone(cwd) and fetchBranchPR(cwd, branch). Returns parsed objects or null on failure.

Modified Files

• package.json — Add lanternControl.projectInfo view at position 0 in the lanternControl views array. Add lanternControl.refreshProjectInfo command and its menu entry.
• src/extension.js — Import and instantiate ProjectInfoProvider. Register tree view and refresh command. Hook into branch polling to detect branch changes and trigger provider refresh.

What This Does NOT Include

• No periodic auto-refresh of GitHub data
• No milestone editing or switching
• No clickable actions except PR → open in browser
• No configuration settings