IBM® watsonx™ Code Assistant for Enterprise Java Applications

Overview

IBM® watsonx™ Code Assistant is an innovative, generative AI coding companion that offers robust, contextually aware assistance for popular programming languages including Go, C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, TypeScript, and more. Seamlessly integrated into your IDE, you can accelerate your productivity and simplify coding tasks, all with trust, security, and compliance.

The IBM® watsonx™ Code Assistant for Enterprise Java Applications extension adds features for Java application upgrades and modernization, and enhanced code explanation and unit test generation.

Features

Java runtime modernization

Analyze your Java application runtime and modernize it to a more lightweight, flexible, and efficient runtime. Receive a prescriptive plan that describes the changes that are needed to modernize your application, with a detailed assessment of complexity and required development effort. Use automation to quickly implement code and configuration changes. Transform code with generative Al assistance to resolve more complex issues.

For more information, see the documentation for Modernizing Java applications.

Java version upgrade

Identify changes required to upgrade Java code, automatically apply fixes, and use generative AI to transform Java code. Receive a prescriptive plan that describes the changes that are needed to upgrade your application, with a detailed assessment of complexity and required development effort. Use automation to quickly implement code and configuration changes. Transform code with generative Al assistance to resolve more complex issues.

For more information, see the documentation for Upgrading the Java version for your application.

Explain code and applications

Understand complex code structures by using generative AI to summarize your application's key functions, services, and dependencies.

Get enhanced code explanations. Use generative AI to analyze and summarize your code to understand what the code does. Click the Explain option that precedes a code block or enter /explain in a chat conversation. IBM watsonx Code Assistant analyzes the code and provides a detailed explanation of what the code does.

For more information, see the documentation for Explaining code.

Generate unit tests

Use generative AI to create tests that help maintain critical application functions.

Create enhanced unit tests to evaluate your code functions. Click the Unit Test option that precedes a code block or enter /unit-test in a chat conversation. IBM watsonx Code Assistant analyzes the code and creates a unit test.

For more information, see the documentation for Generating unit tests.

Java development

Use generative Al code recommendations, code completion, and comment-to-code to develop new Java applications.

For more information, see the documentation for Getting code suggestions.

Setup

This extension is intended for use with a Standard plan of watsonx Code Assistant, which includes the enterprise Java features. For more information, see the pricing plans.

To set up on IBM Cloud:

1. Use the IBM Cloud catalog to provision a Standard plan service instance of watsonx Code Assistant.
2. When you finish provisioning your instance, click Setup to open an onboarding checklist page to help you with configuration.
3. Have your developers create an IBM Cloud API Key.
4. Have your developers install the Visual Studio Code extensions for watsonx Code Assistant.

For more information, see the documentation for:

• Setting up your watsonx Code Assistant service in IBM Cloud
• Installing the IDE extension or plugin

Java requirements

The requirements to use {{site.data.keyword.wcaej_short}} features are:

For more information, see Setting up your enterprise Java environment in the IBM watsonx Code Assistant documentation

Securing your setup

Your Visual Studio Code environment

IBM watsonx Code Assistant does not provide any additional security controls. Use the following steps to properly secure your setup:

• Apply all Visual Studio Code updates to help ensure you have the latest security and bug fixes. For more information, see the Microsoft Documentation.
• The IBM watsonx Code Assistant extension logs are stored in *.log files under <your home directory>/.wca. These files are not encrypted, other than the encryption that your file system provides. Safeguard the logs against improper access.

Chat conversation storage

IBM watsonx Code Assistant stores all your chat conversations locally in your file system under <your home directory>/.wca/chat.db, in a database format defined by SQLite. IBM watsonx Code Assistant does not share these conversations with anyone. This file is not encrypted, other than the encryption that your file system provides. Safeguard this file against improper access.

Telemetry data

IBM watsonx Code Assistant does not collect any telemetry data. In general, IBM watsonx Code Assistant does not send any data that it processes to a third party, IBM included.