Thoughts about AI agent IDE

I am pretty sure many developers have their favorite AI IDE. But if we take a closer look, we can find more different details and have a basic understanding of the ecosystem. I might dig deeper into these topics but currently I will just provide a brief summery for everyone.

1.      Levels of integration. The first level is extension, usually based on VS code because it is more open sources. The advanced one are tools like Cursor, Void or Kiro. A user can simply finish the task while using these tools. CLI like Claude Code, Codex, GPT CLI or Gemini CLI…provide the most function and thus many engineers like them.

2.      Focusing stacks. Some IDE like Cursor are for coding development itself, while others, especially for new joiners, letting users deal with backends like CI/CD. An interesting truth is that even for their developer use different tools including rivals’. In fact, almost all of my friends in the filed use multi tools at the same time.

3.      Vibe or Spec.  I know some will argue that this is the philosophy of coding, but when it comes to actual production process, there is little room for us to waste the time, energy and capital. In short, the sweep spot between “over engineered” and “vibe coded destroyed” varies depends on the project, and there is no universals standard answer.

There are still a lot of issues and topics to discuss, and as these tools keep improved, we can only have more to consider about. I hope you like the article and I am happy to share more.