Unleash Your Development Superpowers: Refining the Core Coding Experience

Source: Google Developers Blog

MARCH 10, 2026

Here on the Gemini Code Assist team, our primary goal is to make the moment‑to‑moment experience of writing and reviewing code more fluid, intelligent, and productive. We believe that a great developer tool gets out of your way while offering powerful assistance right when and where you need it.

This post highlights recent feature additions and improvements that enhance your core coding workflow. From writing the first line of a function to navigating your project, these updates are designed to keep you in a state of flow and help you produce high‑quality code faster.

New & Improved Features

• Agent Mode with Auto Approve
  Acts as an intelligent collaborator that understands your entire codebase, drastically simplifying large‑scale changes (e.g., adding a new API endpoint across multiple files). The agent analyzes your request, proposes a multi‑step plan for your approval, and then executes it. Enabling Auto Approve Mode lets the agent act on its plan without manual checks at each step, turning hours‑long, multi‑file updates into a single automated command.

• Inline Diff Views
  Enhances the code‑review experience with inline diff views. You can edit AI‑generated changes directly in the integrated diff, accepting, rejecting, or modifying every line on the fly. Modifications are displayed within the surrounding code context, turning the review process into a dynamic conversation with the AI.

• Revert to Checkpoint: Experiment Fearlessly
  Allows a single‑click rollback of all affected files to their prior state before a prompt. This safety net encourages ambitious refactoring and experimentation without the fear of getting stuck in a broken state.

• Multi‑part Chat Code Suggestions
  When Gemini suggests changes across multiple files or code blocks, you can review each change individually within the chat interface and decide whether to accept a single block or apply all suggestions at once. This granular control lets you pick only the parts you need without leaving your editor.

• Chat Code Suggestion Preview
  Suggestions are now displayed in clean, collapsible preview blocks. By default you see a snippet; expanding reveals the full code. This keeps chat history scannable and helps you manage screen real estate during long conversations.

• Improved Code Completion Speed
  Under‑the‑hood model and infrastructure upgrades boost code‑completion speed, reducing interruptions and keeping you in a cognitive flow. Faster suggestions let you write entire functions, import libraries, and finish code blocks with minimal pause.

Each of these features was designed with one goal in mind: to make your hands‑on‑keyboard coding experience as seamless and powerful as possible. By removing friction from daily tasks and enhancing Code Assist’s AI‑assistive capability, we hope to keep you in that creative flow state where great development happens.

Customization & Context Management

A truly powerful developer experience is one you can control and tailor to your specific needs. The following features focus on new tools and settings that let you customize your interactions with Gemini, manage development context precisely, and stay informed about the tool itself.

• Manage Files and Folders in the Context Drawer
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New Gemini Features

• Context Drawer – Gain precise, temporary control over what Gemini sees
  The Context Drawer UI lets you view, add, or remove specific files and folders from the context of your current conversation.
  Example: If you’re debugging a bug that only involves three files in a massive project, you can limit the context to those files. This keeps Gemini’s answers highly relevant and reduces clutter, leading to faster and more accurate assistance.

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• Create Custom Commands
  Define your own slash commands or save complex prompts that perform routine actions (e.g., generate a test file with your preferred boilerplate or refactor code according to your team’s style guide).
  By encoding personal and team‑specific knowledge, Gemini becomes a specialized tool that automates your recurring tasks, saving time and ensuring consistency.

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• Add Code Snippets to the Chat Context
  Attach specific code snippets (functions, classes, or even a single line) directly to the chat context instead of pasting them manually.
  This preserves the file’s surrounding context, resulting in more accurate explanations, refactoring suggestions, or bug fixes.

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• Add Terminal Output to the Chat Context
  Attach terminal output (error messages, logs, stack traces, command history) with a single click.
  Gemini receives the full, unaltered picture, speeding up debugging of CLI tools, build scripts, and server logs.

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• Configurable Codebase Awareness
  Use AI exclusion files (e.g., .aiignore) to permanently tell Gemini which files or directories to ignore—such as node_modules, build artifacts, or files containing sensitive keys.
  This improves suggestion relevance, enhances security, and gives you total control over what Gemini can see.

• Stop In‑progress Chat Responses
  A new stop button lets you halt a response at any time, useful when you realize the question was wrong or the answer is heading in an unwanted direction.
  This saves time and lets you pivot quickly without waiting for the full response.

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• Thinking Tokens
  While Gemini processes a request, “thinking tokens” appear as a visual indicator.
  This provides confidence that the query is being actively worked on, reducing the guesswork of whether the assistant has stalled.

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• Release Channel Name in Chat Banner
  The VS Code chat banner now displays the release channel name (Stable, Release Candidate, etc.).
  Knowing the channel helps you track feature availability, anticipate behavior changes, and give accurate feedback for bug reports or feature requests.

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We’ve explored the evolution of your AI collaborator—from an assistant that speeds up core coding tasks to a fully customizable partner that adapts to your workflow.

Gemini Code Assist – Tailored to Your Workflow

Our mission is to build Gemini Code Assist that not only understands code but understands how you code. By refining the immediate, in‑editor experience and providing deep customization, we aim to make your development process more intuitive, creative, and powerful.

We’re incredibly excited to get these tools into your hands. Please dive in, experiment with the new features, and continue to share your feedback. The future of software development is collaborative, and we can’t wait to see what you build with Gemini Code Assist.

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