Adding workspace context to Amazon Q Developer chat in the IDE

When you chat with Amazon Q in the integrated development environment (IDE), you can add @workspace to your question to automatically include the most relevant chunks of your workspace code as context. Amazon Q Developer determines relevance based on an index that is updated periodically.

With workspace context, Amazon Q has enhanced capabilities, including locating files, understanding how code is used across files, and generating code that leverages multiple files, including files that aren’t opened.

Setup

Before you continue, make sure you have the latest version of your IDE installed. You can then complete the following setup steps.

Enable indexing

To use your workspace as context, Amazon Q creates a local index of your workspace repository, including code files, configuration files, and project structure. During indexing, non-essential files like binaries or those specified in .gitignore files are filtered out.

It can take 5 to 20 minutes to index a new workspace. During this time, you can expect elevated CPU usage in your IDE. After initial indexing, the index is incrementally updated when you make changes to your workspace.

The first time you add workspace context, you must enable indexing in your IDE. Complete the following steps to enable indexing:

Configure indexing (optional)

No configuration is necessary for the indexing process, however you can choose to specify the number of threads dedicated to indexing. If you increase the number of threads used, indexing will complete faster, and it will use more of your CPU. To update the indexing configuration, specify the number of threads in Amazon Q settings under Amazon Q: Local Workspace Index Threads.

Ask questions with workspace context

To add your workspace as context to your conversation with Amazon Q, open the workspace you want to ask questions about, and then add @workspace to your question in the chat panel. You must add @workspace to any question that you want to add workspace context to.

If you want to start chatting about a different workspace, open the workspace, and then open a new chat tab. Include @workspace in your question to add the new workspace as context.

You can ask Amazon Q about any file in your workspace, including unopened files. Amazon Q can explain files, locate code, and generate code across files, in addition to existing conversational coding capabilities.

Following are example questions you can ask Amazon Q that leverage workspace context in the chat: