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The Symbiotic Code IDE extension brings the coding agent into VS Code-based editors. It provides AI assistance for code generation, debugging, refactoring, and repository exploration. The extension runs the same Symbiotic Code engine as the CLI, so both share the same configuration files (~/.config/symbiotic/, symbiotic.json, .symbiotic/), agents, permissions, and security modes.

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Supported IDEs

Symbiotic Code supports IDEs based on VS Code, such as VS Code, VSCodium, Cursor, Windsurf, and Kiro.

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Getting Started

  1. Install the extension: download the VSIX and install it in your IDE (Extensions view → … → Install from VSIX…). The extension downloads the Symbiotic Code engine it needs on first start; you don’t need to install the CLI separately.
  2. Sign in with your Symbiotic Security account from the Symbiotic Code sidebar (or run Symbiotic Code: Sign In from the command palette).
  3. Start coding from the Symbiotic Code view in the activity bar.

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Key features

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Agent modes

In the chat input, you can select the most appropriate agent for your current task:
  • Build: The default agent. Edits files, runs commands, and uses tools according to your permissions. Best for active development.
  • Plan: A planning agent that analyzes the codebase and drafts plans. File edits are denied (except plan files) and it is instructed not to make changes.
  • Ask: A read-only agent that answers questions and explains code without modifying anything.
  • Debug: A specialized agent that diagnoses and fixes bugs using runtime evidence.
See Agents for details. You can also create your own modes in Settings > Agent Behaviour > Agents with Create New Mode (name, description, and system prompt), or Import an existing agent definition.

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Security modes and guardrails

The security mode selector in the chat input controls how much security workflow runs during a session: See Security modes for details. Organization and repository guardrails are separate Markdown instructions. Symbiotic Code fetches active guardrails from the backend on startup and refreshes them every 5 minutes. Settings > Guardrails shows which guardrails are active and lets you refresh or clear them. See AI Guardrails.

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Editor integration

  • Code actions: Select code and right-click to Explain Code, Fix Code, Improve Code, or Add to Context (Ctrl+K Ctrl+A / Cmd+K Cmd+A).
  • Terminal actions: Right-click in the terminal to add its content to the context or ask the agent to fix or explain a command.
  • Commit messages: Use Generate Commit Message from the Source Control view.
  • Agent Manager (Ctrl+Shift+M / Cmd+Shift+M): run and switch between multiple sessions, including in separate git worktrees.
  • Toggle auto-approve (Ctrl+Alt+A / Cmd+Alt+A): while enabled, permission requests are approved automatically (once each).

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Settings

Open Settings from the gear icon in the Symbiotic Code sidebar. Changes made in the Settings panel are saved to your global configuration file (~/.config/symbiotic/symbiotic.jsonc or symbiotic.json). Use the Local Config and Global Config buttons to open the project or global configuration file directly. The main categories are described below. Other tabs cover Browser automation, Checkpoints, Display, Autocomplete, Context, Guardrails, Commit Message, Experimental features, and Language.

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Models

Configure which AI models power your development workflow:
  • Default Model: The primary model used for conversations (model in the configuration file).
  • Small Model: A lightweight model for title generation, commit message generation, prompt enhancement, and other quick tasks (small_model). When not set, a small model from the same provider is picked automatically.
  • Model per Mode: Assign a specific model to each agent mode (Build, Plan, Ask, Debug, and your custom modes). When not set, the Default Model is used.

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Providers

Manage and configure your AI model providers:
  • Symbiotic: The default managed provider using Symbiotic’s curated models, authenticated through the Symbiotic gateway. Sign in or out from here.
  • Connected providers: View connected third-party providers (including those detected from environment variables), edit custom providers, and disconnect them.
  • Popular providers: Anthropic, GitHub Copilot, OpenAI, Google, OpenRouter, and Vercel AI Gateway. Click Connect and enter your credentials. Use View all for the full provider list.
  • Custom provider: Add any OpenAI-compatible provider by base URL, for example a local model server such as Ollama.
See Models and providers.

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Agent Behaviour

Customize how agents behave with multiple tabs: Agents: Choose the Default Agent and view all available agents and subagents:
  • ask: Get answers and explanations without making changes to the codebase
  • build: The default agent. Executes tools based on configured permissions
  • debug: Diagnose and fix software issues with systematic debugging methodology
  • explore: Fast subagent specialized for exploring codebases and finding files by patterns
  • general: General-purpose subagent for researching complex questions and executing multi-step tasks
  • owasp-security-review: Subagent that reviews code against the OWASP Top 10 and reports findings
  • plan: Plan mode that disallows all edit tools
  • triage: Security engineer subagent for triaging static analysis findings
Select an agent to override its model, add a custom prompt, set temperature, top P, or max steps, or mark it as hidden or disabled. Use Create New Mode or Import to add your own. MCP Servers, Rules, Workflows, Skills: Manage MCP servers, rules and additional instruction files, workflows (your custom commands), and skills including extra skill folder paths and URLs.

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Auto-Approve

Define whether each tool runs automatically with permission rules. Each tool can be set to Allow, Ask, or Deny, and some tools accept pattern-based exceptions. See Tool permissions.
  • External Directory: Accessing files outside the workspace is set to Ask by default.
  • Bash: Set a default for all commands (*), then add exceptions with patterns such as git *, npm *, or rm * (for example, allow grep * but ask for git push).
  • Read: *.env and *.env.* files require confirmation by default; *.env.example is allowed.
  • Edit: Set a default for file edits, with path exceptions.
  • Other tools: Glob, Grep, List, Task (subagents), Skill, LSP, todo, web search, web fetch, and doom loop detection (set to Ask by default).
Add exceptions with Add path or Add command.