Pipet Code Agent is an AI-powered code assistance tool, built as an extension for Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code). Pipet uses the Google Gemini API to help you write code comments and review your code by adding commands to the command pallete of VS Code.

Pipet is provided as a development project, so you must configure and build it if you want to run it in your VS Code instance. For more information about building, configuring, running, and extending this project, see the Build AI Code Assistant with Pipet Code Agent tutorial.

These instructions walk you through getting the Pipet Code Agent project set up for development and testing. The general steps are Installing some prerequisite software, setting a few environment variables, cloning the project from the code repository, and running the configuration installation.

Note: You need a Google Gemini API Key to be able to run the project, which you can obtain from the Google Gemini API page.

The Pipet Code Agent project runs as an extension of Microsoft Visual Studio Code, and uses Node.js and npm to manage packages and run the application. The following installation instructions are for a Linux host machine.

To install the required software:

1. Install Visual Studio Code for your platform.
2. Install node and npm by following the installation instructions for your platform.

Download the project code and use the npm installation command to download the required dependencies and configure the project. You need git source control software to retrieve the project source code.

To download and configure the project code:

1. Clone the git repository using the following command.
   git clone https://github.com/google/generative-ai-docs
2. Optionally, configure your local git repository to use sparse checkout, so you have only the files for the Docs Agent project.
   cd generative-ai-docs/
git sparse-checkout init --cone
git sparse-checkout set examples/gemini/node/pipet-code-agent/
3. Navigate to the Pipet Code Agent project root directory.
   cd generative-ai-docs/examples/gemini/node/pipet-code-agent/
4. Run the install command to download dependencies and configure the project:
   npm install

You should now be able to test your installation by running Pipet Code Agent as a development extension in VS Code on your device. The test opens a separate VS Code Extension Development Host window where the new extension is available. In this new window, you configure the API Key the extension uses to access the Google Gemini API.

To configure and test your setup:

1. Start the VS Code application.
2. In VS Code, create a new window by selecting File > New Window.
3. Open the Pipet Code Agent project by selecting File > Open Folder, and selecting the pipet-code-agent/ folder.
4. Open the pipet-code-agent/package.json file.
5. Run the extension in debug mode by selecting Run > Start Debugging. This step opens a separate VS Code Extension Development Host window.
6. Open the VS Code settings by selecting Code > Settings > Settings.
7. Get a Google Gemini API Key from the Generative AI Developer site, and copy the key string.
8. Set the API key as a configuration setting. In Search Settings field, type pipet, select the User tab, and in the Google > Gemini Api Key setting, click the Edit in settings.json link, and add your Gemini API key:
   "google.gemini.apiKey": "your-api-key-here"
9. Save the changes to the settings.json file and close the settings tabs.

Caution: Treat your API Key like a password and protect it appropriately. Don't embed your key in publicly published code.

To test the extension commands:

1. In the VS Code Extension Development Host window, select some code in the editor window.
2. Open the command palette by selecting View > Command Palette.
3. In the Command Palette, type Pipet and select one of the commands with that prefix.

• Project code tutorial: Build AI Code Assistant with Pipet Code Agent tutorial.