AWS recently announced that Amazon Q Developer now supports inline chat, enabling developers to discuss and resolve code issues within the editor. Combining the benefits of in-IDE chat with the ability to directly update codes, this feature is powered by Claude 3.5 and available in Visual Studio Code and JetBrains IDEs.
Previously known as Amazon CodeWhisperer and generally available since May, Q Developer is Amazon's response to Microsoft's GitHub Copilot - an AI coding assistant designed to help developers focus more on coding and less on maintenance tasks. With the new inline chat feature, developers can select sections of code for assistance and initiate a chat within Visual Studio Code or JetBrains IDEs, requesting actions like "Optimize this code," "Add comments," or "Write tests." Introducing the new feature and discussing its applications, Jose Yapur, senior developer advocate at AWS, writes:
Inline chat allows me to provide additional context, such as a description of the bug I'm trying to fix, directly in the code editor. The AI-generated response is then seamlessly merged into my existing code, rather than requiring me to copy and paste from a separate chat window. (...) This new capability is ideal for editing an existing file to fix issues, optimize code, refactor code, add comments.
Powered by Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet and designed for code refactoring, debugging, and documentation creation, the inline chat functionality is a new addition to Amazon Q, though not unique within the AI coding assistant space. Comparing it to existing tools like Cursor, a fork of VS Code, Luc van Donkersgoed, principal engineer at PostNL, writes:
Amazon Q looked at Cursor AI and thought... We can do that! And honestly, I'm happy for it. Cursor has great UX, everybody should look at what they can steal.. err.. learn from them.
The new inline chat feature allows developers to update code directly within the editor, providing a diff of the code to be added or removed. While similar AI capabilities were previously available in an external chat panel, developers had to manually copy responses, merge changes, or create new methods, which still required cleaning up old code. Yapur adds:
Whether it’s generating new features, refactoring existing code, or adding comprehensive documentation, inline chat streamlines the workflow, eliminating the need to switch between separate chat and editor windows.
According to SWE-bench, Claude 3.5 Sonnet currently ranks as the top model for coding assistants, outperforming OpenAI’s o1 models. While developer feedback has been mixed over the past few months, Denis Fedotenko, senior engineering director at BlackBerry, comments:
My experience so far has been very encouraging. I have tried Amazon Q with Linux kernel C code and questions (a bit of hallucination there) and with C# - very solid. All within VSCode.
The new feature is included in Q Developer's Free tier, with a capped number of requests per month, and is available in all regions where Q Developer is currently supported. The Pro tier is priced at 19 USD per user per month.