Aider in your IDE

AI comments

If you run aider with --watch-files, it will watch all files in your repo and look for any AI coding instructions you add using your favorite IDE or text editor.

Specifically, aider looks for one-liner comments (# … or // …) that either start or end with AI, AI! or AI? like these:

# Make a snake game. AI!
# What is the purpose of this method AI?

Or in // comment languages…

// Write a protein folding prediction engine. AI!

Aider will take note of all the comments that start or end with AI. Comments that include AI! with an exclamation point or AI? with a question mark are special. They triggers aider to take action to collect all the AI comments and use them as your instructions.

  • AI! triggers aider to make changes to your code.
  • AI? triggers aider to answer your question.

See the demo video above that shows aider working with AI comments in VSCode.

Example

For example, if you included this AI comment in your code:

function factorial(n) // Implement this. AI!

Then aider would update the file and implement the function:

function factorial(n) {
  if (n === 0 || n === 1) {
    return 1;
  } else {
    return n * factorial(n - 1);
  }
}

Comment styles

Aider only watches for these types of one-liner comments:

# Python and bash style
// Javascript style 
-- SQL style

Aider will look for those comment types in all files. You can use them into any code file you’re editing, even if they aren’t the correct comment syntax for that language.

Multiple uses

This capability is quite flexible and powerful, and can be used in many ways.

In-context instructions

You can add an AI comment in the function you want changed, explaining the change request in-context right where you want the changes.

app.get('/sqrt/:n', (req, res) => {
    const n = parseFloat(req.params.n);

    // Add error handling for NaN and less than zero. AI!

    const result = math.sqrt(n);
    res.json({ result: result });
});

Multiple comments

You can add multiple AI comments without the !, before triggering aider with a final AI!. Also keep in mind that you can spread the AI comments across multiple files, if you want to coordinate changes in multiple places. Just use AI! last, to trigger aider.

@app.route('/factorial/<int:n>')
def factorial(n):
    if n < 0:
        return jsonify(error="Factorial is not defined for negative numbers"), 400
        
    # AI: Refactor this code...
    
    result = 1
    for i in range(1, n + 1):
        result *= i
        
    # ... into to a compute_factorial() function. AI!
    
    return jsonify(result=result)

Long form instructions

You can add a block of comments, with longer instructions. Just be sure to start or end one of the lines with AI or AI! to draw aider’s attention to the block.

# Make these changes: AI!
# - Add a proper main() function
# - Use Click to process cmd line args
# - Accept --host and --port args
# - Print a welcome message that includes the listening url

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(debug=True)

Add a file to the aider chat

Rather than using /add to add a file inside the aider chat, you can simply put an #AI comment in it and save the file. You can undo/remove the comment immediately if you like, the file will still be added to the aider chat.

Also use aider chat in the terminal

It can be really helpful to get a change started with AI comments. But sometimes you want to build on or refine those changes. You can of course continue to do that with AI comments, but it can sometimes be effective to switch over to the aider terminal chat. The chat has the history of the AI comments you just made, so you can continue on naturally from there.

You can also use the normal aider chat in your terminal to work with many of aider’s more advanced features:

  • Use /undo to revert changes you don’t like. Although you may also be able to use your IDE’s undo function to step back in the file history.
  • Use chat modes to ask questions or get help.
  • Manage the chat context with /tokens, /clear, /drop, /reset. Adding an AI comment will add the file to the chat. Periodically, you may want remove extra context that is no longer needed.
  • Fix lint and test errors.
  • Run shell commands.
  • Etc.

You can be lazy

The examples above all show AI comments with full sentences, proper capitalization, punctuation, etc. This was done to help explain how AI comments work, but is not needed in practice.

Most LLMs are perfectly capable of dealing with ambiguity and inferring implied intent. This often allows you to be quite lazy with your AI comments. In particular, you can start and end comments with lowercase ai and ai!, but you can also be much more terse with the request itself. Below are simpler versions of some of the examples given above.

When the context clearly implies the needed action, ai! might be all you need. For example, to implement a factorial function in a program full of other math functions either of these approaches would probably work:

function factorial(n) // ai!

Or…

// add factorial() ai!

Rather than a long, explicit comment like “Add error handling for NaN and less than zero,” you can let aider infer more about the request. This simpler comment may be sufficient:

app.get('/sqrt/:n', (req, res) => {
    const n = parseFloat(req.params.n);

    // add error handling ai!

    const result = math.sqrt(n);
    res.json({ result: result });
});

Similarly, this refactor probably could have been requested with fewer words, like this:

@app.route('/factorial/<int:n>')
def factorial(n):
    if n < 0:
        return jsonify(error="Factorial is not defined for negative numbers"), 400
        
    # ai refactor...
    
    result = 1
    for i in range(1, n + 1):
        result *= i
        
    # ... to compute_factorial() ai!
    
    return jsonify(result=result)

As you use aider with your chosen LLM, you can develop a sense for how explicit you need to make your AI comments.

Behind the scenes

Aider sends your AI comments to the LLM with the repo map and all the other code context you’ve added to the chat.

It also pulls out and highlights the AI comments with specific context, showing the LLM exactly how they fit into the code base.

The "AI" comments below marked with █ can be found in the code files I've shared with you.
They contain your instructions.
Make the requested changes.
Be sure to remove all these "AI" comments from the code!

todo_app.py:
⋮...
│class TodoList:
⋮...
│    def __init__(self):
│        """Initialize an empty todo list"""
⋮...
│
│    def list_tasks(self):
│        """Display all tasks"""
█        # Implement this. AI!
│
│def main():
│    todo = TodoList()
│
⋮...

Credits

This feature was inspired by the way Override watches for file changes to find prompts embedded within //> a specific set of delimiters <//.