Bito AI directly in Visual Studio Code
Tags: ai, chatgp, programming, vscode
Published: 2023-01-31 08:43:58

With the rise of GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT the spotlight has clearly moved (I mean, it was already there but now with higher intensity) towards AI and how it can make our job better.

While looking for a free way to integrate AI into my workflow I came across [Bito AI](https://bito.co/). On their website I see it comes as VSCode extension but it should also work for JetBrains IDEs like IntelliJ and WebStorm, and even as a Chrome extension. Anyway haven't tried them yet as most of the time I'm on VSCode.

## Installation

On VSCode is quite easy, after installing the extension from the store a new button will appear on the sidebar. From there you can login by just putting your email and confirming the code sent to your inbox.

From now on, you're part of a workspace. This is for collaboration but I'll get into that later.

## Features

Unlike Copilot that mostly works on the code, you can interact with Bito from the sidebar to get access to a chat-like interface, or by right-clicking on a piece of code as new menu options will appear.


![Bito AI - VSCode Extension](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/u8hp687g95e3w6xbozms.png)

I've been using Bito for a couple of weeks now and these are the features I used the most:

### Chat UI

This is the main feature of Bito. You can ask questions and get answers from the AI. It's not perfect but it's a good way to get some ideas and inspiration. Feels like having ChatGPT right in your IDE, right? That's because Bito uses OpenAI's models, the same used for ChatGPT :D

### Code Generation

I mean, we're in 2023, boring and repetitive code should be autogenerated. Just ask in chat and copy paste the code. You clearly cannot 100% trust it so doublechecking is mandatory, but it's a good starting point. At least, you don't need to google or check on StackOverflow for "js function to test if email is valid".

![Bito AI - js function](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/wtx54ohcqr5bahuab07r.png)

### Explain Code

We spend more time _reading_ code than _writing_ code. Sometimes its helpful to have someone explain what that particular piece of code does as most likely someone else wrote it... or it was you, two weeks ago? Who knows! Anyway, even for library stuff you can right-click on it, then on the menu "Bito AI -> Explain this code code" and ask Bito for some advice.

![Bito AI - explain code](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/zuhmyim28r4cp0n2mom0.png)

### Shortcuts

Using the mouse is slow and boooring, I liked that all the features that are available in the context menu already come with a shortcut assigned. Also, on VSCode all features show up in the command palette (`Cmd+Shift+P` or `Ctrl+Shift+P`) so you can easily assign your own shortcuts.

One more cool place to find shortcuts is on the menu right below the chat:

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/x0je8yw0aeymyjy2brg2.gif)

### Privacy

Not that my code is too cool to keep secret, most of my work is Open Source, but I get that if you're using tools like Bito while working on a company project you might want to keep it private. According to the [official docs](https://docs.bito.co/privacy-and-security):

> Bito doesn't store any code you give as input to the Bito AI. However, the code snippets you select are sent to our servers for processing.
> Any response generated by the AI Assistance is stored locally on your machine to show the history in Bito UI. You can clear the history anytime you want from the Bito UI.

Better safe than sorry :D

## Conclusion

The project is still in Alpha and I have to say I had some trobules when installing it the first time. I did the dumb move of unintentionally closing vscode during the installation process and I got in a weird state. However I contacted the support and they quickly helped me out. By the way, I think that issue is now fixed so you're good to go.

Anyway, I see it also has some good reviews on [Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/products/bito-code-tours), if you want to give it a try the official website is [bito.co](https://bito.co/).

I like to experiment with these new AI tools and see how they can help me. I'm not in the team "AI will steal our job!" but rather "AI will make our job easier" so why not giving them a chance? :)

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