GULt: Yo

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Inspiration

When you just begin developing with a new language or a framework, you can get overwhelmed with all the new functionalities and options available. This is something that everyone of us had to deal with, specially us that we have very little experience with Java. We had a lot of trouble learning Gradle too, and this extension would have been a great support during the development of this plugin.

What it does

This is an AI coding companion, that follows you along the editor while you are developing, that helps you whenever you are lost editing a file, by telling you what you are doing wrong, and how to fix it. Everything is done by the llm in the background, without the user needing to do anything.

Features

The assistant understands the context of the file and the project, and gives you specific help for your case, instead of giving you generic answers.

The assistant follows you along the file, keeping you company while you code, and giving you help whenever you need it, without being intrusive. You can even pin it and drag it around at your command, so it will never hide the code you are writing.

Instead of asking the llm in each line being edited, the user needs to click the assistant, to "request help", and the query then will be made to the llm, with the response appearing as usual.

A cache system is implemented, so if the same query is made again, the response will be given from the cache, instead of asking the llm again, to save time and resources.

Multiple avatars are available to choose from, with the possibility to add more easily!

You can create a GOODBOY.md file in the root of the project, with instructions for the llm, to be used as context for the queries. You may also edit the prompt by adding a custom one into the configuration.

Enter the Konami code and enjoy :D

How we built it

The project is entirely based on the JetBrains SDK template for plugins, using Java and Gradle. We followed the tutorial too to create everything.

Challenges we ran into

We had to use AI for the development of the extension, because we have almost no previous experience with Java nor Gradle development, and even less with the PlugIn SDK. With the help of Copilot and Claude, we were able to bring this project alive.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The Plugin as is, we would even personally use it, as we find it really helpful when learning a new language or framework. Moreover, the avatars turned out great, and we are really happy with what we have done.

What we learned

Even if we used AI, setting everything up, using environment variables, and even setting up the Plugin itself, was something that none of us knew how it worked or how to do it. Furthermore,