Claude Code vs an IDE

One for the coders.

I recently received my JetBrains newsletter announcing a Cursor integration with IntelliJ via their Agent Client Protocol. It gave me pause to reflect on how much my personal development environment and processes have changed since I started using AI agents to build software.

I've tested Cursor and other AI-native IDEs for about a year now, but stopped using them regularly when Claude Code dropped. As I've mentioned before, the CLI felt very natural to me, along with the more conversational nature of coding with an agent.

The bigger shift, though, is that I've largely stopped using traditional IDEs altogether. IntelliJ, Cursor, Visual Studio, all of them.

In the past, I relied on deep knowledge of keyboard shortcuts and code generation features to squeeze every bit of speed out of my IDE. The result was a highly efficient setup, particularly for reducing friction from the massive amounts of boilerplate that software engineering involves.

What AI coding agents have done is not just obscure boilerplate. They've replaced the need for years of muscle memory and curated personalization with a code generation system that is, in my view, the first true killer app for AI.

I still pull an IDE off the shelf when I need to debug something an agent can't fix, perform security or performance analysis on critical code, or get a more holistic view of a system. But that's rare. More often than not, I'm only looking at code in a PR and relying on various analysis tools for quality, performance, and security.

With the advent of multi-agent development, which I predict will be the norm as we exit 2026, I think IDEs will be increasingly relegated to the infrequent tasks I've already been using them for, as we shift to custom agents for all phases of the SDLC.

I'll caveat that: there are some areas where AI agents will take time to penetrate, like compilers, kernels, highly tuned code, and obscure or proprietary languages.