Quick Inline Suggestion
VS Code extension that brings lightweight AI-powered ask and edit workflows into your editor — select code, hit Cmd+I, choose a mode, describe what you need, then review an answer or diff.
Supports Claude Code and OpenAI Codex CLI as backends.
Motivation
Recently, VS Code's built-in AI features have become increasingly bulky. I only wanted the simple inline suggestion workflow from VS Code Copilot: select code, ask for a change, review it, and apply it. So I built this plugin together with Claude Code to keep that experience lightweight and focused.
Features
- Edit mode — select code, describe the change, and review the modified code in a diff before applying
- Ask mode — ask a question about the selected code and get a new temporary document containing the context, your question, and the AI answer
- Inline edit shortcut —
Cmd+I opens the quick workflow for choosing ask or edit mode
- Diff preview — review edit-mode changes side-by-side before applying
- WorkspaceEdit apply — accepted edit-mode changes are applied via VS Code's native edit API, keeping undo history intact
- Project-aware — the AI agent runs with the workspace as
cwd, so it sees your full project context
- Instruction history — recent instructions are recalled and sorted by frequency or recency, with a clear button to reset history
- Auto-fallback — if the primary backend is unavailable, automatically falls back to the other
- Configurable backend — switch between Claude Code and Codex CLI in settings
- Multi-window — Cmd+I works independently in each editor window without locking
Requirements
Usage
- Select code in the editor (or place cursor — empty selection sends the whole file)
- Press
Cmd+I (macOS) / Ctrl+I (Windows/Linux) — Cmd+Shift+I / Ctrl+Shift+I as fallback
- Choose a mode:
- Edit mode — describe the code change you want, then review and apply the diff
- Ask mode — ask a question, then read the generated temporary document containing the selected context, your question, and the answer
- Pick an instruction from history when available, or type a new one (e.g. "convert to async/await", "add error handling", "what does this function do?")
Keybinding conflicts
Official GitHub Copilot and some other extensions also bind Ctrl+I. If the shortcut doesn't work, use Ctrl+Shift+I or run Quick: Inline Edit from the command palette.
Screenshots
| Mode |
Instruction |
Result |
| Edit |
 |
 |
| Ask |
 |
 |
Limitations
- Not real inline/ghost-text completion — unlike Copilot-style Tab completion, this extension is a manual, instruction-driven workflow: you select code, explicitly trigger it (
Cmd+I), and describe what you want. There's no automatic as-you-type suggestion.
- Latency — each request spawns a full CLI agent process (
claude -p / codex exec), which is slower than a dedicated completion model. Expect seconds, not milliseconds.
Roadmap
- Tab completion — add true inline/ghost-text completion (accept with
Tab) alongside the current instruction-driven workflow, for lightweight as-you-type suggestions.
Extension Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
quick-inline-suggestion.backend |
"claude" |
Primary AI backend: claude (Claude Code) or codex (OpenAI Codex CLI). Automatically falls back to the other if unavailable. |
quick-inline-suggestion.historySortBy |
"frequent" |
History dropdown order: frequent (most-used first) or recent (latest first). Frequent mode shows usage counts (e.g. ×5). |
quick-inline-suggestion.maxHistoryDisplay |
3 |
Number of history items shown in the dropdown (1–20). |
Installation
Search Quick Inline Suggestion or download from the VS Code Marketplace.
Reference
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