autocom

Autocom is a VS Code extension that automatically generates Doxygen styled comments and natural language comments for your code using AI models such as GPT-4 and Claude Sonnet 3.5.

Overview of autocom in action

Installation

Install autocom from the VS Code Marketplace or by searching for "autocom" in the VS Code extensions panel (Ctrl-Shift-X).

Usage

To use, highlight the code you want to comment and press Ctrl-Alt-C / Cmd-Opt-C to create a comment above using OpenAI's models. Alternatively, press Ctrl-Alt-G / Cmd-Opt-G to create a comment using Anthropic's models.

A popup also appears when you highlight code, or you can right click your code selection to comment. This is disabled by default, but can be added by setting autocom.enableCodeLens to true in your settings.

The first time you use each model, you will be prompted for an API key, which is stored securely by your OS.

Features

Doxygen-style comments generated for your code
One-click comment generation for code blocks
Multiple AI models supported:
- Anthropic: claude-3-sonnet (default), claude-3-opus, claude-3-haiku
- OpenAI: gpt-4-turbo (default), gpt-4, gpt-3.5-turbo
Smart language detection and appropriate comment styling
Support for 10+ languages including C++, Python, JavaScript, Java, Go, and Rust,
Default keyboard shortcuts for convenient use

Configuration

Configure through VS Code settings (File > Preferences > Settings > Extensions > Autocom):

{
    // Optional: Set comment type
    "autocom.commentType": "doxygen",           // default "block", "inline

    // Optional: Enable CodeLens
    "autocom.enableCodeLens": true,              // default false

    // Optional: Choose AI models
    "autocom.openaiModel": "gpt-4-turbo",        // "gpt-4", "gpt-3.5-turbo"
    "autocom.anthropicModel": "claude-3-sonnet", // "claude-3-opus", "claude-3-haiku"
    
    // Optional: Comment style
    "autocom.commentVerbosity": "standard",     // "concise" or "detailed"
    
    // Optional: Custom prompt templates
    "autocom.customPrompts": {
        "function": {
            "standard": "Generate a comment explaining what this function does..."
        }
    }
}

The customPrompts setting allows you to override default prompts for different comment types and verbosity levels. See documentation for template variables and examples. (TODO: add this documentation)

Known Issues

Does not allow inline commments, only block comments at the top of a block of code
Does not take full context of code in file or directory, only highlighted code
Currently missing support for Doxygen (to be added as next feature)

License

GPL 3.0

Development

# Working on features
git commit -m "add block comment tests"
git push

# Ready for new version
npm version patch  # update version in package.json (alt: minor/major)
git push --tags    # trigger the CI/CD pipeline

Making GIFs

Screen record (TODO: make text larger - crop?)
Crop video (https://online-video-cutter.com/crop-video)
Turn into GIF (https://ezgif.com/video-to-gif)
Add GIF to /img, link GIF in .md file

API Key Issues

Say you've used this extension and want to delete the API key associated with it. If you used a model from OpenAI, it could take a while for this key to be deactivated; thus, if you try using the extension, it will likely not ask you for another API key (and will still work).

For reference, see this recent forum post. Note that API keys are stored securely using the SecureStorage interface provided by VS Code for extensions.

Autocom

pbrowne011