AI Code Editors like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, Roo Code, Cline, Continue.dev, etc. use LLMs to help you write code faster.
Most are built on top of VS Code. These are now a standard tool in every developer's toolkit.
GitHub Copilot is free (as of May 2025) for 2,000 completions and 50 chats.
You should learn about:
- Code Suggestions, which is a basic feature.
- Using Chat, which lets you code in natural language.
- Changing the chat model. The free version includes Claude 3.5 Sonnet, a good coding model.
- Prompts to understand how people use AI code editors.