AI Coding Agent: With VSCode And Cline OSS

Let me start by saying this—AI Coding Agents are the future of software development. Today, I’m excited to share my journey setting up one with VSCode and the Cline (free OSS extension). As a software developer with years of experience, I’ve seen many tools come and go, but AI coding assistants have genuinely transformed how I code now. If you’re new to the topic, this guide will walk you through every step and share my tips, mistakes, and triumphs along the way. Trust me – this setup will change your coding life completely.

What is an AI Coding Agent?

An AI Coding Agent is a tool that integrates advanced large language models(LLMs) directly into your coding environment. It helps you write code, spot bugs, and even suggest improvements while you work. I was blown away when I first saw how it could automatically fix errors I missed. Imagine coding with a virtual buddy who’s always there to lend a hand!

Why Should You Care?

This setup isn’t just a fancy tool—it makes coding more efficient and fun. Need to build something in Python but haven’t touched it in years? No problem. Want to refactor legacy JavaScript into modern TypeScript? Done. These agents can handle repetitive tasks, spot bugs before you do, and even suggest optimizations you didn’t know were possible.

Here are some of the many reasons why I think it is a must for software developers’ day-to-day companion:

• Increased Productivity: Automate mundane tasks so you can focus on creativity.
• Expand Expertise: Tackle projects outside your comfort zone without fear.
• Bug Detection: The agent can find obvious bugs almost on its own.
• Documentation generation – Creates clear docs in seconds.

Still not convinced? Think about this: what if you could ship features faster, cleaner, and smarter? (Also, consider watching the demo below to get a taste of how it actually does your work for a fraction of the time)

Step-by-Step Tutorial: Setting Up Your AI Coding Agent

Follow these clear steps to get your AI Coding Agent running in VSCode using the Cline free OSS extension:

1. Install VSCode

First things first, grab yourself a copy of Visual Studio Code. If you already have it installed, great! Move on to the next step. Otherwise, head over to their website and download it. If you haven’t tried it yet, in my opinion, VSCode is worth every byte of disk space as an IDE in general.

2. Install the Cline OSS Extension

Now comes the fun part. Open VSCode, and go to “Extensions.” Once you’re in the Extensions Marketplace, type “Cline” and hit install. Boom—you’ve got yourself a powerful AI assistant.

3. Configure the Extension

After installing Cline, you’ll need to configure a couple of things to make it ready to rock:

1. Configure an AI Model with API Key. If you haven’t used any LLM model APIs before and are just starting out, or might just want to try them out without paying any fee, you might want to try Google Gemini API, which comes with a free usage tier. A pretty good deal for a beginner. On the other hand, if you want to get the best of Agentic capabilities, Claude 3.5 Sonnet is what you want (at the time of writing this). Sign up for any of these, grab your API key, hit settings on the cline extension and put it there.
2. There are a bunch of other settings that you might want to adjust over time according to your taste. To start with, just try them to get a taste of fully autonomous capabilities.

💡Pro Tip: Integrate with Openrouter

I give a big shoutout to Openrouter for making access to different LLMs a one-stop shop and offering better API reliability. Whether you want to use multiple different LLMs for different reasons without the overhead or configuring each provider individually, or want to have better reliability/increased context length, etc, openrouter will have your back.

4. Tell the AI Agent To Start Coding!

Open any project in VSCode and start using the AI Coding Agent. Type a prompt, and watch as the agent suggests code snippets, finds bugs, and even uses the “gh” CLI command to fetch issue info where necessary if you instruct accordingly.

Check out this quick demo recording, in which this VSCode+Cline is coding and playing a minesweeper game all by itself, without any manually written code.

AI Coding Agent: My Personal Experience

I’ve been using the AI Coding Agent for a few months now, and it has dramatically transformed my workflow. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

Positives:

• Boosted Productivity: It has made me 5x more productive overall.
• Expanded Expertise: I can now confidently code in areas I previously avoided, was rusty about, or was unfamiliar with.
• Efficient Bug Fixing: It finds obvious bugs without my constant oversight.

Negatives/Limitations:

The negatives are mostly from the level of intelligence from the LLM models, notably:

• Repetitive Loops: If you put it in “auto approve” mode, it sometimes repeatedly loops through the same changes.
• Capabilities: As mentioned previously, only certain models like Claude 3.5 support image and computer-use capabilities to get the most out of it.

I believe many of the negatives will disappear over time as LLMs become smarter and more powerful over time.

Additional Tips:

• I follow the contributing.md guidelines and use a custom prompt to instruct LLM to follow them. This helps me avoid repeating best practice instructions when telling my agent to do something. This method mostly works but isn’t always flawless.
• For more straightforward tasks, you probably can easily get away with using models like Gemini or DeepSeek, either free of cost or a fraction of the cost of Claude/OpenAI. Use Claude

Alternative Solutions:

While I have been very much enjoying using Cline for my personal AI Coding Agent and don’t feel the immediate need to try any other solutions else just yet, there are some alternatives that you can try and see which one fits your use case/needs:

• Roo-Code: Fork of Cline with some added advanced capabilities.
• Aider: Cli-based, without any IDE constraints.
• Cursor: Uses fork of VSCode as the IDE. Paid solution. Not OSS.

I do plan to try these out at some point. However, if you try out any of the above and have feedback to share, feel free to comment below. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Final Words: The Future Is Here

Setting up your AI Coding Agent with VSCode and the Cline free OSS extension is a straightforward process that can change how you code forever. With a bit of initial effort, you’ll unlock a tool that not only speeds up your workflow but also opens up new avenues for learning and creativity. I’ve seen the benefits firsthand, and I’m sure you will, too!

My advice? Set this up today. Spend an hour getting comfortable with it. I promise your future self will thank you—probably while sipping coffee and watching your AI agent crank out boilerplate code that would have taken you hours. Happy coding!