mcp-vsdiff

An MCP server that exposes VS Code's advanced diff algorithm as a tool.

What it does

Provides a single MCP tool, compute_diff, that computes a highly accurate unified diff between two strings using the same algorithm VS Code uses internally. Features include:

• Move detection — identifies blocks of code that were moved, not just deleted/inserted

• Unified diff output — standard @@-style hunks with 3 lines of context

• Move annotations — deleted lines show {moved to block #N} and inserted lines show {moved from block #N}

• Summary footer — total insertions, deletions, and moved blocks at the end

Related MCP server: Git Stuff Server

Usage

Install

npm install

Run

npm start

The server communicates over stdio and is compatible with any MCP client.

Tool: compute_diff

MCP config example

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vsdiff": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/mcp-diff/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Dependencies

• @modelcontextprotocol/sdk — MCP server framework

• vscode-diff — VS Code's diff algorithm, extracted as a standalone package