Skip to main content

External Tools

Flint integrates with tools you already use alongside Ignition — Kindling for inspecting gateway backups and logs, and the Designer Launcher for opening Designer straight from VS Code. This page covers how each integration works, how detection and configuration behave, and how to reset them.

Prerequisites

Everything on this page works offline — no gateway connection or Designer Bridge module is required. The tools themselves (Kindling, Designer Launcher) must be installed separately on your machine.

Kindling​

Kindling is Inductive Automation's desktop tool for viewing Ignition backup files, module files, internal databases, and logs. When Kindling is available, Flint adds an Open with Kindling entry to the Explorer right-click menu for these file types:

ExtensionFile type
.gwbkGateway backup
.modlIgnition module
.idbInternal database
.logLog file

Installation detection​

The first time you use Open with Kindling, Flint asks whether Kindling is installed and offers three choices:

  • Confirm Installation — Kindling is on your system PATH; Flint launches it directly.
  • Browse for Kindling — pick the executable manually; the path is saved to flint.kindlingExecutablePath.
  • Download Kindling — opens the Kindling download page in your browser.

Your answer is remembered in the flint.hasKindlingInstalled setting, so you are only prompted once.

Settings and commands​

SettingDefaultPurpose
flint.hasKindlingInstalledfalseWhether Kindling is installed and available on the system PATH
flint.kindlingExecutablePath""Custom path to the Kindling executable, used instead of PATH lookup
Command palette titleWhat it does
Flint: Configure Kindling Executable PathSet or change the custom executable path
Flint: Reset Kindling Installation SettingClear the remembered answer so Flint prompts again
WSL and non-standard installs

If you run VS Code in WSL or installed Kindling somewhere unusual, set flint.kindlingExecutablePath to the exact executable location (for WSL, this can point at the Windows executable, for example a .exe under /mnt/c/...). Flint uses this path instead of searching PATH.

Designer Launcher (8.3+)​

For gateways running Ignition 8.3+, Flint can open Designer directly from the Project Browser using the designer:// URL scheme registered by the 8.3 Designer Launcher. The Flint: Open Designer command (also available from a gateway node's context menu) builds the deep link from your configured gateway host and port.

The first time you open Designer this way, Flint asks whether you have the 8.3+ Designer Launcher installed. Your answer is stored in flint.has83DesignerLauncher (default false).

  • If the launcher is available, VS Code opens the designer:// link and the Designer Launcher takes over.
  • If launching fails (launcher not installed, or the designer:// protocol is not registered), Flint offers to open the gateway web interface instead, or to update the setting.
SettingDefaultPurpose
flint.has83DesignerLauncherfalseWhether the Ignition Designer Launcher (8.3+) is installed
Command palette titleWhat it does
Flint: Open DesignerOpen Designer for the active gateway via designer://
Flint: Reset Designer Launcher SettingClear the remembered answer so Flint prompts again
note

The designer:// scheme is only registered by the 8.3+ Designer Launcher. On Ignition 8.1 gateways, use the gateway web interface (Flint: Open Gateway) to download and launch Designer. Opening Designer this way is separate from the Designer Bridge connection — the bridge auto-discovers running Designers regardless of how they were launched.

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)​

Flint handles WSL environments automatically — no manual configuration is required for the Designer Bridge:

  • Registry resolution: the Designer Bridge writes its connection registry to the Windows user profile (~/.ignition/flint/designers/). When the extension runs inside WSL, Flint resolves and reads the Windows-side registry files.
  • WebSocket proxying: a WSL2 process cannot reach Windows 127.0.0.1 directly, so Flint transparently creates a local TCP proxy that relays the Designer WebSocket connection through to Windows localhost.

The only WSL-specific configuration you may need is flint.kindlingExecutablePath, described above, since Kindling runs as a Windows application.

Reset Tool Settings​

The Flint: Reset Tool Settings command presents a category picker for resetting groups of Flint settings, including a workspace configuration reset.

warning

The Workspace Configuration and All Flint Settings categories are destructive — the first resets your workspace flint.config.json and the second resets every Flint setting to its default. For routine reconfiguration of Kindling or the Designer Launcher, prefer the targeted commands Flint: Reset Kindling Installation Setting and Flint: Reset Designer Launcher Setting.