Doc-Powered AI Assistant

Igor Kulakov

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Starting with the 2024.3 version of JetBrains IDEs, AI Assistant can not only access the context from your project but also the IDE’s own documentation. Whenever you have a question about how to accomplish a task in a JetBrains IDE, such as WebStorm, IntelliJ IDEA, or PyCharm, AI Assistant is here to help.

How do I use it?

As long as you are using AI Assistant, the feature works out of the box. When you ask an IDE-related question, AI Assistant will automatically perform the search for you. But if you want AI Assistant to restrict its search to documentation specifically, use the /docs command:

If relevant information is found in the documentation, AI Assistant will cite the source and give you a link to the full document.

How is this different from good old search?

Under the hood, the /docs command uses RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), an approach that combines the power of semantic search and language models. But that’s not all: We took traditional RAG one step further, enabling several distinguishing features of AI Assistant.

Action search

When AI Assistant finds an IDE feature that can solve your query, it will display a button that you can click to execute the corresponding action right away. This lets you use the features directly rather than exploring dialogs and menus.

If you know that a certain feature exists, you can ask about it specifically, or you can just describe your scenario and see if the IDE has features to address your request.

IDE settings

The same works for IDE settings. When giving directions on how to access a particular setting, AI Assistant will also give you a clickable link, which will take you directly to the corresponding settings page:

Shortcuts

If the answer mentions a shortcut, the shortcut will use the correct key binding for your keymap.

Can I add context to a documentation-related query?

Yes! Adding project context also works with the /docs command, which allows you to find solutions for problems related to specific pieces of code or configuration files.

Your feedback is very important!

As a host of new features and improvements are steadily making their way towards you, we are excited to learn what you think about the /docs command in the comments. Your experiences and insights are very valuable to us.

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