Kevin Quillen Releases Offline htaccess Testing Plugins for VS Code and JetBrains IDEs

The tools were inspired by the long-standing madewithlove online tester, a resource Quillen has relied on for years. Unlike that website, these new extensions integrate directly into the development environment and work without requiring internet access. Each plugin features a simple UI panel and a custom evaluation engine—TypeScript-based for VS Code and Kotlin-based for JetBrains that simulates how `.htaccess` directives would behave in a real Apache environment.

Rather than aiming for complete Apache emulation, the plugins focus on providing accurate feedback for typical rewrite rules and conditions used in content management systems and frameworks such as Drupal, WordPress, Symfony, and Laravel. All evaluations happen locally, and no data is sent externally. This ensures faster iteration and greater privacy during development.

The VS Code plugin and the JetBrains version are both publicly available. The JetBrains release supports all major IDEs in the family, including PHPStorm, WebStorm, and IntelliJ IDEA. Quillen has also made the source code for both plugins available under open source licenses on GitHub at htaccess-tester and htaccess-tester-vscode.