Continue is an open-source editor extension that brings AI into VS Code or JetBrains: completion, chat, code editing and rule-driven actions are all configurable. The distinctive part is pluggability: models, embedding services and rules are yours to connect, including models running locally or in a private environment. That makes it a framework to assemble, with config files to maintain; first setup is harder than a hosted service, and it suits teams with data-flow requirements.
What it does
- Open source and self-hostable, with auditable behavior
- Swappable model sources, cloud or local inference
- Completion, chat and editing as composable modules
- Rules and assistant behavior defined in config
- Hosts in both VS Code and JetBrains
Who it is for
- A policy that code stays on the intranet, needing local or private inference
- Swapping models freely in one plugin for comparison
- Encoding team conventions as reusable rules
- A transparent reference implementation for tool selection
How to get started
- Install per the repo docs and start with the easiest model to connect
- Keep config files in version control for rollback and sharing
- Fix a test task set for comparing models
