I built a VS Code extension that helps you actually understand and learn what Claude Code did, not just accept the output

One thing I've noticed teaching students to code — when they use AI to write code for them, they often have no idea why it made the decisions it did. They just run it, it works, and they move on without understanding anything.

The same problem exists for me as a developer using Claude Code. It finishes a session, edits files, and I have no real visibility into what changed, why, or what assumptions it silently made along the way.

So I built TraceBack -> a VS Code extension that turns a Claude Code session into something you can actually review and learn from.

— Each prompt becomes a chapter, so you can follow the agent's thought process step by step without scrolling through terminal output

— A decisions tab surfaces the silent assumptions the agent made mid-session, so you can see where it made judgment calls and whether they were right

— File diffs show exactly what changed and whether the agent actually verified its own edits

— Guards block dangerous operations before they run, so you can let it run without babysitting it

It's free, runs entirely local, no API keys needed.

If you're learning to code with AI tools, I think actually understanding what the agent did is more valuable than just getting working code. This tries to help with that.

GitHub: https://github.com/madiyarzm/TraceBack

VS Code Marketplace: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=madiyarzhunussov.traceback-ai

Happy to hear feedback.