This is a time of AI. If you’re a developer, you cannot survive in the industry without using AI. With AI, you can accelerate your coding process, debug more efficiently, and generate optimized solutions faster. AI-powered tools like code assistants, automated testing frameworks, and machine learning-driven analytics help developers write cleaner, more efficient code while reducing errors.
Beyond just writing code, AI can assist in architecture planning, performance optimization, and even predicting potential bottlenecks in an application. Those who embrace AI will not only stay relevant but also gain a competitive edge in the ever-evolving tech industry.
There are many AI extensions available to use in your VS Code to enhance your coding experience with AI-powered features. Here’s a list of popular and helpful AI extensions for Visual Studio Code (VS Code), covering code completion, documentation, debugging, and more:
1. GitHub Copilot
This is the most popular AI powered tool developed by GitHub in collaboration with OpenAI. You can easily install Github Copilot extension to your VS Code to write code faster and smarter. With this extension, you have inline chat and code suggestions features. You can also generate code, fix errors, ask questions about your code, and more.
Key Features
- Provides real-time code completions as you type
- Can generate boilerplate code, function definitions, and repetitive structures
- Suggests alternative implementations
- Helps detect and fix common errors
- Helps explain complex code snippets
- Works with multiple programming languages
2. Tabnine
Tabnine is a popular AI tool that is based on proprietary AI models trained specifically for code completion. Initially, it was built on OpenAI’s GPT-2, but now it uses its own custom-trained models optimized for code prediction.
Tabnine specifically designed for coders to use in VS code to increase their productivity by helping through code completion and suggestion to write code faster and with fewer errors.
Key Features
- Whole-line & full-function completions
- Natural language to code suggestions
- Context-aware predictions based on project structure
- Fine-tuned suggestions for company-specific codebases
- Cloud-enhanced mode for deeper learning and better suggestions
- Fully local mode for privacy and security
3. Codeium
Codeium is an AI-powered coding assistant that provides fast, intelligent code completions and supports multiple programming languages.
Key Features
- Fast, real-time inline code suggestions
- Autocompletes functions, entire lines, and code blocks
- AI Chat for Coding Help
- Can help debug, optimize, and explain code
- Helps developers generate boilerplate & complex logic faster
- Works in multiple programming languages
4. Qodo
Blackbox AI is an AI-powered coding assistant designed to help developers with code autocompletion, code search, and AI-powered explanations. It competes with tools like GitHub Copilot, Codeium, and Tabnine but focuses on searching and retrieving code from various sources. You can easily install Balckbox AI extension to your VS Code and use it.
Key Features
- Provides real-time inline code suggestions
- Can generate entire functions based on context
- Allows natural language search to find relevant code
- Helps developers find, modify, and reuse code faster
- Searches open-source repositories for code snippets
- Can extract code from YouTube videos and images
- Recognizes code from screenshots and converts it into text
- Helps developers copy code without manual typing
- Supports multiple programming languages
6. Mintlify
Mintlify AI is an AI-powered documentation tool that helps developers generate, improve, and maintain high-quality code documentation. It focuses on automating documentation, making it a great alternative to manually writing API and function docs.
Key Features
- Automatically generates docstrings for functions & classes
- Works with REST, GraphQL, and other API types
- Provides inline suggestions within IDEs
- Extracts relevant context from code for accurate documentation
- Supports JSDoc, Python docstrings, and other documentation formats
- Generates clean, structured API documentation
- Supports Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, Java, and more
7. Cursor
Cursor AI is an AI-powered coding assistant and IDE designed specifically for software developers. It enhances productivity by providing AI-driven code suggestions, debugging, and auto-documentation directly within the coding environment. You can easily install extension in your VS code and use it’s features to speedup coding.
Key Features
- Inline code suggestions based on context
- Identifies bugs, errors, and inefficiencies in real-time
- Provides suggested fixes & improvements
- Runs locally for enhanced security
- Explains complex code snippets in plain language
- Helps developers understand unfamiliar codebases faster
- Can refactor & optimize code for better performance
- Autocompletes entire functions & boilerplate code
- Supports multiple programming languages
Final Words
Here in this article, we have listed some useful AI tools that can be used in VS code. You can try any of these from list as per your needs to enhance your coding skills and productivity.