Capture VS Code requests to Ollama using MITM reverse proxy

Have you ever wondered what exactly your VS Code AI extensions are whispering to your local models? By setting up a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) proxy, you can peek behind the curtain and capture every prompt generated by your editor.

 

Using mitmdump, we can create a reverse proxy in front of a local Ollama instance (which runs on port 11434) and record the incoming traffic:

Bash

mitmdump --mode reverse:http://localhost:11434 -p 11435 -w ~/Documents/ollama_requests.log

By pointing your VS Code extension to localhost:11435 instead of the default port, all HTTP traffic is silently intercepted and saved to your log file.

Next, we convert this binary log into a human-readable format, cranking up the detail level to capture the full request payloads:

Bash

mitmdump -r ollama_requests.log --set flow_detail=3 > today.txt

Now you have a raw text file containing every prompt and system instruction sent by VS Code. The final step is to feed today.txt back into an LLM. You can ask it to summarize your daily coding activity, analyze the hidden system prompts injected by your extensions, or extract recurring development patterns. It is a fantastic way to reverse-engineer how AI assistants structure their context.

Dealing with JSON serialization and how to convert JSON object strings back and forth

A simple reminder about how JSON PL/SQL methods deal with JSON values, it easy to get confused when you mix up JSON objects and their serialized counterparts, especially if some if these parts are coming from JSON SQL functions and you need to combine them with other parts generated by PL/SQL.

The code below should clarify the difference between a "real" JSON value and its textual representation, especially when you are assembling a JSON object with values containing other JSON objects or their serialized representation.

When you PUT a serialized JSON string into a new JSON, the method escapes all the special characters that otherwise would break the syntax (lines 10-16).
In order to reconstruct a valid JSON string, something that you can PARSE as JSON, you need to retrieve the value with GET_STRING or GET_CLOB if it is large (lines 18-20).

If you need to include a serialized JSON object into a new JSON object thus avoiding the automatic escaping, then you need to convert the serialized JSON string into a proper JSON object and then PUT it inside the new object (lines 26-29). 

declare
    c  varchar2(255) := '{"key": 1, "value": "X"}';
    d  varchar2(255);
    j  json_object_t;
    j1 json_object_t;
    j2 json_object_t;
begin
    
    if c is json then
        dbms_output.put_line('c is a string containing a valid JSON');
        j := json_object_t.parse(c);

        j1 := new json_object_t;
        j1.put('document', c);
        dbms_output.put_line('c is now escaped and becomes a string literal value');
        dbms_output.put_line(j1.to_string());
        dbms_output.new_line;
        d := j1.get_string('document');
        dbms_output.put_line('c is converted back into the original JSON object string');
        dbms_output.put_line(d);


        dbms_output.new_line;
        dbms_output.new_line;

        j2 := new json_object_t;
        j2.put('document', j);
        dbms_output.put_line('c is still a json object value, now embedded in a new JSON object');
        dbms_output.put_line(j2.to_string());
    else
        dbms_output.put_line('NOT JSON');
    end if;
end;
/

Watch out for NULL values because GET_STRING and GET_CLOB show two different behaviors in older releases of Oracle 19c.

 

SQLDeveloper 23.1.1 fails on startup

Getting a long trace of errors like the following on launching SQLDeveloper?

...
oracle.ide.indexing -     org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso:    
C:\sqldeveloper\ide\extensions\oracle.ide.indexing.jar: Not found     bundle:oracle.ide.indexing
oracle.external.woodstox -     org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso:     
C:\sqldeveloper\external\oracle.external.woodstox.jar: Not found     bundle:oracle.external.woodstox
oracle.external.osdt - org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: 
C:\sqldeveloper\external\oracle.external.osdt.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.external.osdt
oracle.javamodel_rt - org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: 
C:\sqldeveloper\external\oracle.javamodel-rt.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.javamodel_rt
oracle.ide.macros - org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: 
C:\sqldeveloper\jdev\extensions\oracle.ide.macros.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.ide.macros
oracle.javatools_jdk - org.netbeans.InvalidException: Netigso: 
C:\sqldeveloper\jdev\lib\jdkver.jar: Not found bundle:oracle.javatools_jdk
... 
(truncated for clarity)

On Windows, if the problem affects version 23.1.1, the solution is to delete the following hidden directory:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\sqldeveloper\23.1.1

Then restart SQLDeveloper.

Usually you need to enable a specific option in Windows File Explorer to visualize hidden directories and files or you enter manually AppData in the address bar when you are inside the directory with your username.

My best guess is that the same workaround applies for earlier or later versions, but I can't verify my assumption. 

Hope it helps