CodeAssist

Capabilities

Note: I don't develop/maintain this tool any longer, so I don't recommend using it, at the moment. I might get back to it, so stay informed, if you want.

It has a natural language interface, so you can talk to it like you talk to a human.
It can access your code and make changes to the open file in your editor.
It's powered by GPT-4.
It can execute actions like opening a file, as part of assisting you in your work.
With a developer's supervision and correcting mistakes, it's capable of implementing an entire feature in a typical application (recommended method: tell CodeAssist what you want to do, ask it to generate plan how to do that, and after ensuring that the plan is ok, tell them to execute the plan).
It has long-term memory (not persistent, so if you close and open IDE, the memory is gone).
It generates the code with the awareness of the code in other files and other parts of the file that you are working with.
It works with all popular programming languages.

Current limitations

It makes lots of mistakes like for example incorrect indentation. The developer needs to fix those mistakes.
It's an early version, so it might contain some unexpected bugs or annoyances.
Known bug: in Visual Studio Code, the message history sometimes disappears, when you move to another view and then get back to the CodeAssist chat view, or move the view to a different panel.

Demo

Tip: If it fails to load here, click "YouTube" or "Watch on YouTube" to watch it on YouTube. Apologies for the temporary inconvenience.

FAQ

How is it different from ChatGPT? And how is it similar?

Differences:

CodeAssist can directly read and write code from/into your editor. You don't have to copy and paste it from your browser to the editor.
It can take actions like opening files or searching the codebase, as part of doing its job.
When you use ChatGPT, the input that you pass to ChatGPT can be used for improvement of the OpenAI services. When you use CodeAssist, the input is not used for improvement of any services (neither by CodeAssist nor OpenAI).

Similarities:

Both programs are chatbots - they have natural, human-like interface.

How is it different from Github Copilot? And how is it similar?

Differences:

You can talk to it (like you talk to ChatGPT).
CodeAssist doesn't hide your standard completions from IDE. It completes the code when you press a keyboard shortcut or run an action. It doesn't suggest the changes.

Similarities:

Both Copilot and CodeAssist can generate completion of your code.
Both of them takes context from other files into account, when generating the completion.

Does it send the code that it works with to an external server? How is the code processed or stored (if at all)?

When you work with CodeAssist plugin/extension, the code that CodeAssist works with is sent to the CodeAssist API. Your code is processed there to generate CodeAssist response (in the form of code change or message). Currently, the processed code is not stored on the server. If there are any changes to that, we'll let you know.

As part of generating response, CodeAssist sends the code to OpenAI API. OpenAI may use the content (code and text) as necessary to provide and maintain their services, comply with applicable law, and enforce their policies. The code is not used by OpenAI for improvement of their services or training of their models.

Get started

In order to use CodeAssist, you need to sign up here. After you sign up, you will be given an API key that you need to copy and paste in the settings of the plugin. Below you can find the installation instructions for the plugin.

CodeAssist is paid (you will need to buy credits), but you receive 3 free credits at the beginning, so you can try it for free.

1 credit costs $1.

Currently, 1 credit allows you to get approximately 7 messages / code generations / other actions executed by CodeAssist. But it's likely that there will be cheaper options in the future (stay informed, if you like).

Note: this is an early version and might not be perfect. It might contain some unexpected bugs or annoyances. I will be improving the app with time.

Installation in Visual Studio Code

To install CodeAssist in Visual Studio Code, you need to do the following steps:

Open Visual Studio Code.
Go to View -> Extensions.
Type "CodeAssist" in the search field.
Click on the "Install" button.
You should have a new option "CodeAssist" (comment icon) in the activity bar on the left. Click it and it will open a chat window. Say "hello" and say what you want it to do for you.
Consider moving the "chat" window to the secondary sidebar (View -> Appearance -> Secondary sidebar, and then drag and drop the CodeAssist window into the secondary sidebar).

Installation in a JetBrains IDE

JetBrains IDE is for example: PyCharm, PHPStorm, IntelliJ IDEA, WebStorm and so on...

To install CodeAssist in Jetbrains IDE, you need to do the following steps:

Open your IDE.
Go to File -> Settings -> Plugins.
Click on the "Install JetBrains plugin..." button.
Type "CodeAssist" in the search field.
Click on the "Install" button.
Click "CodeAssist" tab on the right side.