A new generation of developer tools assumes you have a language model in the loop. The question is no longer whether to adopt them but which ones to trust with production code.
The Three Layers of AI Tooling
Inline completion lives in the editor. Conversational assistants live in side panels and terminals. Background agents live in CI and review systems. Each layer has different latency, cost, and accuracy needs.
Evaluation Criteria
- How well does it understand your repository, not just isolated files?
- Does it cite sources or just generate plausible text?
- How does it handle private code and secrets?
- Can you steer it with project-specific instructions?
Conclusion
AI-driven tools are not a feature anymore, they are a category. Choose the ones that respect your codebase as much as you do.