Provide guidance to help you solve problems with your code.
Generate code for your project.
Receive inline suggestions while you're coding.
Learn how and when Gemini for Google Cloud uses your data.
To help you comply with any license requirements for your code, Gemini Code Assist provides source citations when its suggestions directly quote at length from a specific source. To learn more about how and when Gemini cites sources, see How Gemini helps you generate code and cites sources.This document is intended for developers of all skill levels. It assumes you have working knowledge of Cloud Workstations and are familiar with Google Cloud. If you prefer, you can also explore Gemini Code Assist in Cloud Code for VS Code, Cloud Code for IntelliJ, and Cloud Shell Editor.
Before you begin
-
Make sure that you have the Cloud Workstations Admin IAM role on the project so that you can create workstation configurations.
Set up your workstation if you haven't already, and make sure to select Base Editor (Code-OSS) in the configuration.
- Before testing Gemini Code Assist capabilities in your code file, make sure your file's coding language is supported. For more information on supported coding languages, see Supported coding languages.
Connect to Google Cloud and select a project
In this section, you'll connect to Google Cloud and select a Google Cloud project with the Cloud AI Companion API enabled in your workstation.
If you select a Google Cloud project without the Cloud AI Companion API enabled, you receive a notification that gives you the option to enable the API from the IDE. Select Enable the API in the notification window to enable the API for your project. For more information, see Set up Gemini Code Assist for a project.
To connect to Google Cloud in your workstation, follow these steps:
In the Google Cloud console, launch your workstation.
In the status bar, click Cloud Code - Sign In.
When you're prompted to sign in, click Proceed to sign in.
To launch the Google Cloud sign-in flow, press Control (for Windows and Linux) or Command (for macOS) and click the URL in the console.
If prompted to allow Cloud Workstations to open the external website, click Open.
To sign into your account, follow the prompts.
If prompted to make sure that you downloaded this app from Google, click Sign in.
A new tab opens in your browser, displaying your verification code to sign into Cloud Code.
Copy the verification code and paste it into your terminal where it says Enter authorization code, and then press Enter (for Windows and Linux) or Return (for macOS).
You're now connected to Google Cloud.
Next, to select a Google Cloud project that has the Cloud AI Companion API enabled, follow these steps:
In the Gemini Code Assist status bar, click Gemini Code Assist.
In the Gemini Code Assist menu, select Select Gemini Code project.
Select a Google Cloud project that has the Cloud AI Companion API enabled.
Gemini is ready to use.
Chat with Gemini Code Assist
In this section, you learn how to open the Gemini Code Assist pane and chat with Gemini Code Assist to get an explanation of your existing code.
To begin chatting with Gemini, follow these steps:
Open your code file.
In the activity bar of your workstation, click spark Gemini Code Assist.
In the Gemini Code Assist pane, enter the prompt
Explain this code to me
and click send Send.Gemini uses the code in your code file as a reference to your prompt and responds with an explanation of your code.
To refer to a specific block of code instead of all the code in the file, you can select the block in your code file and then prompt Gemini.
Reset chat history
Gemini Code Assist uses the chat history for additional context when responding to your prompts.
If your chat history is no longer relevant to what you're trying to achieve, you can reset the chat history: in the Gemini Code Assist pane, click delete Reset Chat.
Generate code with prompts
The following sections show you how to use Gemini Code Assist to
generate code with the example prompt Function to create a Cloud Storage
bucket
inside your code file. You can also select a part of your code and then
prompt Gemini Code Assist for help through the chat feature, and
receive and accept or reject code suggestions while you code.
Prompt Gemini Code Assist in a code file
In your code file, on a new line, enter the comment
Function to create a Cloud Storage bucket
, and then press Enter (for Windows and Linux) or Return (for macOS).To generate code, press Control+Enter (for Windows and Linux) or Control+Return (for macOS).
Next to your prompt text in your code file, Gemini Code Assist generates the code in the form of ghost text.
Optional: To accept the generated code, press Tab.
Optional: Change keyboard shortcut for generating code
If the default keyboard shortcut for generating code isn't working as outlined in the previous section, you can change the keyboard shortcut by following these steps:
In your workstation, click menu Menu, and then navigate to File > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts.
In the list of keyboard shortcuts, search for Cloud Code: Generate Code.
Click Cloud Code: Generate Code, and then click edit Change Keybinding.
In the dialog that appears, enter your own shortcut.
Press Enter (for Windows and Linux) or Return (for macOS).
You can now use your newly assigned keyboard shortcut to generate code with Gemini.
Prompt Gemini Code Assist with selected code using chat
Gemini Code Assist can perform tasks or answer your questions based on the code that you select. To get generated code that's based on a prompt with selected code, follow these steps:
In the activity bar, click spark Gemini Code Assist to open the Gemini Code Assist pane.
In your code file, select a block of code.
In the Gemini Code Assist pane text field, enter a prompt for the selected code.
For example, select a function in your code and enter the prompt
Write a unit test for this function
:Gemini uses your selected code as reference and responds to your prompt.
Get inline suggestions while you code
While you write code, Gemini Code Assist makes inline code suggestions that you can either accept or ignore. To try this feature, follow these steps:
In your code file, on a new line, start writing a function. For example, if you're in a Python file, write
def
.Gemini suggests code in the form of ghost text.
To accept the code suggestion from Gemini Code Assist, press Tab. Otherwise, to ignore the suggestion, press Esc or continue writing your code.
Optional: Disable inline suggestions
If you prefer to disable inline suggestions in Gemini Code Assist, follow these steps:
In your workstation, select menu Menu, and then navigate to File > Preferences > Settings.
On the User tab of the Settings dialog, navigate to Extensions > Cloud Code.
Scroll until you find the Cloudcode: Gemini Code Assist: Inline Suggestions: Enable Auto list, and then select Off.
This turns off the inline suggestions. You can still press Control+Enter (for Windows and Linux) or Control+Return (for macOS) to manually trigger inline suggestions.
Disable code suggestions that match cited sources
Gemini provides citation information when it directly quotes at length from another source, such as existing open source code. For more information, see How and when Gemini cites sources.
To prevent code that matches cited sources from being suggested, you can modify
the cloudcode.duetAI.recitation.maxCitedLength
setting to 0
in a
settings.json
file:
"cloudcode.duetAI.recitation.maxCitedLength": 0
Use smart actions
To help you be more productive while minimizing context switching, Gemini Code Assist provides AI-powered smart actions directly in your code editor. When you select your code in your code editor, you can view and select from a list of actions relevant to your context.
To use smart actions in your code, follow these steps:
In your code file, select a block of code.
Next to the selected code block, click lightbulb Show Code Actions.
Select an action such as Generate unit tests.
Gemini generates a response that's based on the action you selected.
Preview: Use Code Transformations
Gemini Code Assist provides Code Transformations, which allows you to select a portion of your code file and request modifications to your existing code through prompts in natural language, using an inline text box.
With Code Transformations, you can do the following:
- Generate comment lines to document your code
- Troubleshoot code with issues
- Improve code readability
- Make code more efficient
You can also view context sources of a generated response in the Gemini: Chat pane.
Prompt Gemini Code Assist with the inline text box
The inline text box allows you to interact with Gemini Code Assist directly in your code file.
To open the inline text box and prompt Gemini, follow these steps:
In your code file, press Control+I (for Windows and Linux) or Command+I (for macOS).
Enter a prompt, like
Write a function to create a Cloud Storage bucket
, and press Enter (for Windows and Linux) or Return (for macOS).Gemini Code Assist generates the code based on your prompt.
View diff of refactored code
With the diff view built into the inline text box, you can see the changes that Gemini suggests and your original code. You can then accept or discard the suggested changes.
To view the diff of refactored code from the inline text box, perform the following steps:
In your code file, select a function and open the inline text box by pressing Control+I (for Windows and Linux) or Command+I (for macOS).
Enter a prompt, like
Add comments
and press Enter (for Windows and Linux) or Return (for macOS).When Gemini generates the code changes to your selected function, the diff view appears.
To accept or discard the changes, click Accept or Discard.
View context sources of a generated response
The context display feature lists your project files (the context sources) that were used as reference to generate responses to your prompts. Knowing which files were used as references helps you to refine your prompts and get more specific responses. Context sources are shown every time you use Gemini chat.
To view the context sources of the generated response, in the Gemini: Chat pane, scroll until you see the Context Sources snippet. Expand the snippet to see all of the context sources.
Use smart commands
Smart commands are commands that you can use in the inline text box to perform specific actions to your code.
To get an explanation of your entire code file with the /explain
smart
command, follow these steps:
In your code file, open the inline text box by pressing Control+I (for Windows and Linux) or Command+I (for macOS).
Press / to view the list of smart commands and their descriptions.
Select
/explain
.Gemini generates an explanation of the entire code file in the inline text box.
Optional: If you want to view the generated response in the Gemini: Chat pane, click View in Chat.
View prompt history
Accessing your prompt history saves you time when you need to enter the same prompt(s) in a large code file.
To access your prompt history, in your code file, open the inline text box by pressing Control+I (for Windows and Linux) or Command+I (for macOS) and then press Control+Up arrow (for Windows and Linux) or Command+Up arrow (for macOS). This allows you to cycle through your older prompts and re-use them when needed.
Enhance code readability for non-native English speakers
If you're a non-native English speaker that relies on translation applications, you can use the inline text box to generate comments in other languages.
To convert English comments to another language or add new comments in another language, follow these steps:
In your code file, select code that you want to add comments to.
Open the inline text box by pressing Control+I (for Windows and Linux) or Command+I (for macOS).
Enter a prompt, like
Add spanish comments
and press Enter (for Windows and Linux) or Return (for macOS).Gemini generates comments in the language that you specified in your prompt and views the diff of these suggestions.
To accept or discard these changes to your code, click Accept or Discard.
Test other example prompts
After reading through the Generate code with prompts section of this document, try some of the following example prompts.
Get an explanation of code
- In your code file, select a function that you want explained.
In the Gemini Code Assist pane, enter the prompt
Explain this code to me
.Gemini uses your selected code as a reference and responds with an explanation of the selected function.
Generate test plans
- In your code file, select the code that you want to add unit tests for.
- In the Gemini Code Assist pane, enter the prompt
Write unit tests for my code
.
Get help with debugging code
- In your code file, select the code that you want to debug.
- In the Gemini Code Assist pane, enter the prompt
Help me debug my code
.
Make your code more readable
- In your code file, select the code that you want to make more readable.
In the Gemini Code Assist pane, enter the prompt
Make my code more readable
.If you prefer to focus on a specific part of your code, then select the preferred part of code before prompting Gemini.
Known issues
The following sections outline the known issues of Gemini Code Assist.
License recitation warnings don't persist across sessions
If license recitation warnings don't persist across sessions, refer to the persistent logs:
Click menu Menu > View > Output.
Select Gemini Code Assist - Citations.
Connectivity issues in the Gemini Code Assist output window
If you see a connection error or other connectivity problems in the Gemini Code Assist output window, try the following:
Configure your firewall to allow access to
oauth2.googleapis.com
andcloudaicompanion.googleapis.com
.Configure your firewall to allow communication over HTTP/2, which gRPC uses.
You can use the grpc-health-probe
tool to test connectivity. A successful
check results in the following output:
$ grpc-health-probe -addr cloudaicompanion.googleapis.com:443 -tls
error: this server does not implement the grpc health protocol
(grpc.health.v1.Health): GRPC target method can't be resolved
An unsuccessful check results in the following output:
timeout: failed to connect service "cloudaicompanion.googleapis.com:443" within 1s
To obtain more details, run the following before grpc-health-probe
:
export GRPC_GO_LOG_SEVERITY_LEVEL=info
Gemini Code Assist and JetBrains Gateway
Gemini Code Assist does not run through JetBrains Gateway. As a result, Gemini Code Assist does not run on Cloud Workstations IDEs that require JetBrains Gateway to connect.
'Activate Gemini Code Assist' still appears after selecting Gemini Code Assist project
If you selected your project per the instructions in this guide, which includes enabling the Cloud AI Companion API, then there may be an issue with the LS server.
To find out more details about your issue, perform the following actions:
In the status bar, click spark Gemini Code Assist and then select Send feedback.
Click Show for any of the log files to see more details and to help troubleshoot the issue.
Leave feedback
To leave feedback of your experience, follow these steps:
In the status bar, click Gemini Code Assist, and then in the Quick Pick menu, select Send feedback.
In the form, fill out the Title and Comments fields.
If you want to share your Skaffold or AI Companion logs, make sure that you select the Send Skaffold logs or Send AI Companion logs option.
Click Submit Feedback.
What's next
- Learn how to write better prompts.