Large Language Models
Mike Slinn

Using ChatGPT with Visual Studio Code

Published 2025-10-17.
Time to read: 2 minutes.

This page is part of the llm collection.

Somehow I did not get around to trying to generate software with OpenAI products until now.

Codex – OpenAI’s coding agent

Shell
$ code --install-extension openai.chatgpt
Installing extensions...
Installing extension 'openai.chatgpt'...
Extension 'openai.chatgpt' v0.4.19 was successfully installed.

Plus Plan Required for Codex

In Canada, ChatGPT Plus costs US $20/month plus taxes, which ends up being ~ CAD $27-30/month depending on the province and exchange rates.

If you subscribe via Apple’s Canadian App Store, there’s a fixed rate: CAD $24.99/month, or CAD $249/year for the annual plan.

Error: [object Object]

The error message "Error: [object Object]" in the context of ChatGPT within VS Code typically indicates that a JavaScript object is being implicitly converted to a string when it should be handled differently, or that there's an issue with how data is being passed or received by the ChatGPT extension or API.

Here's how to address this error:

    1. Ensure the ChatGPT or CodeGPT extension in VS Code is correctly installed and configured with an OpenAI API key.
    2. Real Programmers Pumping It Up
      Real Programmers Pumping It Up
      Verify that the API key is active and has the necessary permissions.

      A quick online search brought me to the OpenAI API Key Harvester Tester. Nope. Not for me!

      The incantation below is how real programmers test the validity of an OpenAI API key store in an environment variable called OPENAI_API_KEY. This incantation just asks OpenAI for the current list of available models:
      Shell
      $ curl https://api.openai.com/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY"
{
"object": "list",
"data": [
  {
    "id": "gpt-3.5-turbo",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1677610602,
    "owned_by": "openai"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-search-api-2025-10-14",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1760043960,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-audio-mini-2025-10-06",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1759512137,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-search-api",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1759514629,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "sora-2",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1759708615,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "sora-2-pro",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1759708663,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "davinci-002",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1692634301,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "babbage-002",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1692634615,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1692901427,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct-0914",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1694122472,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "dall-e-3",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1698785189,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "dall-e-2",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1698798177,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-3.5-turbo-1106",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1698959748,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "tts-1-hd",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1699046015,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "tts-1-1106",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1699053241,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "tts-1-hd-1106",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1699053533,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "text-embedding-3-small",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1705948997,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "text-embedding-3-large",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1705953180,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-3.5-turbo-0125",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1706048358,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1715367049,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-2024-05-13",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1715368132,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-mini-2024-07-18",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1721172717,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-mini",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1721172741,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-2024-08-06",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1722814719,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "o1-mini-2024-09-12",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1725648979,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "o1-mini",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1725649008,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-audio-preview-2024-10-01",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1727389042,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-audio-preview",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1727460443,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "omni-moderation-latest",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1731689265,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "omni-moderation-2024-09-26",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1732734466,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-audio-preview-2024-12-17",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1734034239,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-mini-audio-preview-2024-12-17",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1734115920,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "o1-2024-12-17",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1734326976,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "o1",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1734375816,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-mini-audio-preview",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1734387424,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "o3-mini",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1737146383,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "o3-mini-2025-01-31",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1738010200,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-2024-11-20",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1739331543,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-search-preview-2025-03-11",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1741388170,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-search-preview",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1741388720,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-mini-search-preview-2025-03-11",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1741390858,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-mini-search-preview",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1741391161,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-transcribe",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1742068463,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-mini-transcribe",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1742068596,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-mini-tts",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1742403959,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "o3-2025-04-16",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1744133301,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "o4-mini-2025-04-16",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1744133506,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "o3",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1744225308,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "o4-mini",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1744225351,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4.1-2025-04-14",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1744315746,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4.1",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1744316542,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4.1-mini-2025-04-14",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1744317547,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4.1-mini",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1744318173,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4.1-nano-2025-04-14",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1744321025,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4.1-nano",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1744321707,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-image-1",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1745517030,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-audio-preview-2025-06-03",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1748908498,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1750798887,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-chat-latest",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1754073306,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-2025-08-07",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1754075360,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1754425777,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1754425867,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-mini",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1754425928,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-nano-2025-08-07",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1754426303,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-nano",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1754426384,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-audio-2025-08-28",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1756256146,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-audio",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1756339249,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-codex",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1757527818,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-image-1-mini",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1758845821,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-pro-2025-10-06",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1759469707,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-5-pro",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1759469822,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-audio-mini",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1759512027,
    "owned_by": "system"
  },
  {
    "id": "whisper-1",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1677532384,
    "owned_by": "openai-internal"
  },
  {
    "id": "tts-1",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1681940951,
    "owned_by": "openai-internal"
  },
  {
    "id": "gpt-3.5-turbo-16k",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1683758102,
    "owned_by": "openai-internal"
  },
  {
    "id": "text-embedding-ada-002",
    "object": "model",
    "created": 1671217299,
    "owned_by": "openai-internal"
  }
]
      }
  2. I cannot inspect the API responses.
  3. Troubleshoot the VS Code Extension:
    1. Restart VS Code: A simple restart can resolve temporary glitches.
    2. Update Extension: Ensure the ChatGPT or CodeGPT extension is updated to the latest version.
    3. Disable/Re-enable Extension: Try disabling and then re-enabling the extension in VS Code.
    4. Reinstall Extension: If the above steps fail, consider uninstalling and reinstalling the extension.
  4. Check the OpenAI Status page.

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