👉 Install [Visual Studio Code extension](https://github.com/devchat-ai/devchat-vscode) from [Visual Studio Marketplace](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=merico.devchat) and enjoy DevChat 👏
DevChat is an open-source platform that empowers developers to leverage AI for code generation and documentation. We aim to go beyond simple code auto-completion and limited operations on brief code snippets. DevChat offers a highly *practical* and *effective* way for developers to interact and collaborate with AI.
While there are many AI coding tools available, we created DevChat based on our unique insights gained from generating tens of thousands of lines of code. If you agree with our perspectives outlined below, DevChat could be the perfect choice for you.
- The value of prompt "engineering" is often overestimated. While a well-crafted prompt template can be helpful, it's not worth spending more than an hour or two to create a few effective ones and share them with your team.
- The art of writing prompts is a skill honed through practice. It's not about templates or engineering, but about refining individual prompts for specific tasks on a case-by-case basis.
- The key to success lies in embedding the right context in a prompt. This isn't about the token limit of an AI model. Even with infinite tokens, AI would struggle to deliver good results without proper separation of concerns.
- Use AI only when it truly adds value. The issue of AI hallucination is less of a concern compared to our overestimation of AI's capabilities. What we need is a tool that boosts productivity, not merely an experimental tool.
<sub>(This image is licensed by devchat.ai under a <arel="license"href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.)</sub>
<sub>(This image is licensed by devchat.ai under a <arel="license"href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.)</sub>
- Since DevChat is designed for developers, it requires a Git or SVN repository folder to store metadata. Therefore, be sure to open a Git or SVN project.
- Set your [OpenAI API Key](https://platform.openai.com/account/api-keys) by running `export OPENAI_API_KEY="[sk-...]"` (or set it to your DevChat access key instead).
Check out our [Automated Publishing Process](./docs/publish.md) for a detailed walkthrough of how we manage the automated release of new versions for the DevChat VSCode Extension.
