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The Symbiotic Code IDE extension brings the terminal coding agent into VS Code-based editors. It provides AI assistance for code generation, debugging, refactoring, and repository exploration. The CLI and IDE extension share the same configuration, agents, permissions, and security modes.

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Supported IDEs

Symbiotic Code supports all IDEs based on VSCode like VSCode, VSCodium, Cursor, Windsurf, Kiro.

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Key features

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Interactive Agent Modes

In the agent sidebar, you can select the most appropriate execution mode for your current task:
  • Build Mode: Full access to edit files, execute commands, and run tools in a secure environment. Best for active development.
  • Plan Mode: A read-only analysis agent that inspects codebases, answers architectural questions, and drafts plans. It will always ask for confirmation before making edits or running commands.
  • Debug Mode: A specialized agent focused on identifying, explaining, and resolving code errors, test failures, or runtime bugs.
You can also create custom modes in Settings > Custom Modes by defining a unique name and writing a custom system prompt to tailor the agent’s behavior to your team’s specific guidelines or coding style.

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Security modes and guardrails

Security modes control how much security workflow runs during a session: Organization and repository guardrails are separate Markdown instructions. Symbiotic Code fetches active guardrails from the backend on startup and refreshes them periodically. See AI Guardrails.

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Flexible Models & Providers

Configure which models power your development workflow:
  • Symbiotic Tier Models: Use curated models optimized for security and code generation. Configure variants depending on whether you need high speed or complex reasoning.
  • Default & Mode-Specific Configs: Navigate to Settings > Models to set your default assistant model or assign specific models to different modes (e.g., a lightweight model for Build, a reasoning model for Plan).
  • External Providers: Seamlessly connect to external AI services like Anthropic, OpenRouter, or local models running on Ollama by configuring your credentials in Settings > Provider.

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Getting Started

  1. Install Symbiotic Code with npm, pnpm, yarn, Bun, or the installer. The same CLI can run in an IDE terminal.
  2. Install the IDE extension from the VSIX supplied by your Symbiotic administrator or portal, if your team uses the editor integration.
  3. Sign In & Authenticate with your Symbiotic Security account to connect to the platform.

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Settings

Access the Settings panel in the IDE extension sidebar to customize your Symbiotic Code experience. Settings are organized into the following categories:

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Models

Configure which AI models power your development workflow:
  • Default Model: The primary model used for conversations. The available default depends on the configured provider.
  • Small Model: A lightweight model optimized for quick tasks like title generation, commit message generation, and prompt enhancement. Automatically configured.
  • Model per Mode: Assign specific models to different agent modes:
    • Build: Configure a model for active development (defaults to Default Model)
    • Plan: Configure a model for analysis and planning (defaults to Default Model)
    • Debug: Configure a model for debugging workflows (defaults to Default Model)
    • Ask: Configure a model for read-only queries (defaults to Default Model)

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Providers

Manage and configure your AI model providers: Primary Provider:
  • Symbiotic: The default managed provider using Symbiotic’s curated models. Authenticated via the Symbiotic gateway.
Connected Providers:
  • View all connected third-party providers (e.g., Ollama Cloud, OpenAI, GitHub Copilot)
  • Disconnect providers with a single click
  • Manage API credentials for each provider
Popular Providers:
  • Anthropic: Direct access to Claude models, including Pro and Max variants
  • Google: Gemini models for fast, structured responses
  • OpenRouter: Access all supported models from one unified provider
  • Vercel AI Gateway: Unified access to AI models with smart routing
Connect any provider by clicking + Connect and entering your API credentials.

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Agent Behaviour

Customize how agents behave and operate with multiple configuration tabs: Agents Tab: View all available agents and their descriptions:
  • ask: Get answers and explanations without making changes to the codebase
  • build: The default agent with all tools enabled for full development access
  • debug: Diagnose and fix software issues with systematic debugging methodology
  • explore: Fast agent specialized for exploring codebases and finding files by patterns
  • general: General-purpose agent for researching complex questions and executing multi-step tasks
  • plan: Plan mode that disallows all edit tools
  • triage: Security engineer specialist for triaging static analysis findings
Create new custom modes with Create New Mode or import existing agents. MCP Servers, Rules, Workflows, Skills Tabs: Configure additional agent behavior through Model Context Protocol servers, custom rules, workflow definitions, and skill configurations.

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Auto-Approve

Define how tools are allowed to run with permission rules. Permissions resolve to allow, ask, or deny and can match tool inputs with patterns: External Directory:
  • All paths (*): Set to “Ask” by default to be prompted before accessing files outside the workspace
Bash:
  • Bash: Configure command patterns such as git *, npm *, or rm * explicitly.
  • Exceptions: Define specific commands with custom approval settings:
    • grep * — Set to “Allow”
    • git push — Set to “Ask”
    • rm * — Set to “Ask”
Read:
  • Environment files: *.env and *.env.* require confirmation by default; *.env.example is allowed.
Add additional paths or commands with + Add path or + Add command.