Chatting inline with Amazon Q Developer
The inline chat feature lets you transform existing code—or generate new code—right from your IDE's main coding window. To use the inline chat feature, you highlight code that you want suggestions for, and provide instructions in the small input screen. Amazon Q proceeds to generate code for you, which it presents in a diff within the main coding window. You can then choose to accept or reject the changes.
The advantage of inline chat is that it eliminates the context switching that occurs when moving between a chat window and the main coding window.
You would typically use the inline chat feature when you're reviewing code, writing unit tests, or performing other tasks that require code-based answers. For situations where you want text-based answers (for example, an answer to "Explain this code") then using the chat window is a better option.
Amazon Q considers the code in the current file when generating a code recommendation through the inline chat. It won’t look at code in other files or projects.
Amazon Q inline chat in action
An inline chat session unfolds as follows.
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You highlight the code that you want suggestions for and press
⌘+I(Mac) or Ctrl+I (Windows). Alternatively, you can right-click the selection and choose Amazon Q, Inline chat. This launches a small input screen at the top of the main coding window where you can enter a question like,Fix this code.
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Amazon Q generates code and presents it in a diff.
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You accept or reject the change by choosing Accept or Reject, or by pressing the keyboard equivalents (
EnterorEsc).
Example topics and questions
The inline chat always returns code as the answer, so you can enter prompts like:
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Document this code
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Refactor this code
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Write unit tests for this function
Diff format
The inline chat displays the diff in multiple blocks, with the existing code on the top, and the suggested code on the bottom. A side-by-side diff is not supported.
