Where we're going, we don't need chatbots: introducing the Antigravity IDE 🚀

Source: Dev.to

Lately, I’ve been living in a new world—specifically, a world called Antigravity. It’s the agent‑first IDE that the Google DeepMind team has been building, and honestly? It’s completely ruined “normal” coding for me.

We talk a lot about AI in development, but most of the time this just ends up being a chat box in the browser. Antigravity is different – it’s built on an “agent‑first” architecture (shoutout to the Windsurf team who brought this idea to life!). The idea is that the AI shouldn’t just suggest code; it should be an autonomous partner that can navigate the terminal, the editor, and even a live browser to get things done. We’re even starting to incorporate many of these agentic features into AI Studio’s Build feature!

QA testing and documentation on auto‑pilot

If you’re like me, the most exhausting part of any sprint isn’t the code – it’s the housekeeping. You finish a feature, then you have to spend hours taking screenshots and writing detailed how‑to guides for the quality‑assurance team and for users. It’s important, but tedious.

In Antigravity, I’ve started using the Browser Subagent (powered by Gemini 2.5 Computer Use) to handle this. I can literally just say:

“Go to this staging site, identify five core user journeys, and make a tutorial for all of them.”

The agent doesn’t just guess. It explores the DOM, interacts with elements, and records its progress. The Artifacts System is the “secret sauce”: instead of a wall of text, the agent produces a Walkthrough Artifact—a structured, human‑readable document that includes verification results, detailed steps expressed as text, and screenshots.

Because Antigravity supports asynchronous feedback, I can open the Implementation Plan or Walkthrough and leave Google Docs‑style comments directly on the text or screenshots. The agent reads my feedback in real‑time and adjusts its next steps without needing a full restart.

Toolkit for Antigravity extension

If you’re pushing the limits of agentic coding, you’re likely bouncing between models. I usually have Gemini 3 Pro handling complex architectural planning while Gemini 3 Flash tackles high‑velocity subtasks.

Keeping track of quota (token consumption) across Google AI Studio, Anthropic’s models (Opus, Sonnet), and OpenAI’s models is usually a nightmare. Luckily, a community member built an incredible open‑source extension called Toolkit for Antigravity (available on the OpenVSX marketplace).

It adds sleek Semi‑Arc Gauges to your sidebar that show:

• Real‑time Quota Tracking: Hour‑by‑hour stats for Gemini, Claude 4.5, and the OpenAI GPT models.
• Cache Management: One‑click browsing and purging of conversation caches when things get “loopy.”
• Privacy First: 100 % local with no telemetry, essential for enterprise repos.

Shifting to “Manager View”

The biggest mental shift with Antigravity is moving from the Editor View to the Manager View. In the Editor you write code; in the Manager you act as an architect overseeing multiple agents working in parallel.

Whether you’re refactoring a legacy auth module or having an agent build a new frontend from scratch, the goal is to keep you building without distractions. Antigravity handles terminal commands, dependency installs, and UI verification so you can focus on what you’re building instead of how.

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I’m curious – what’s the one part of your development workflow you wish you could just hand off to an agent today? For me, the top instance was definitely “screenshotting for tutorials,” and I’m never going back.

Catch you in the comments! ✌️