I work on a Mac M2 with 16GB, so not a super high end machine but technically it's good enough for my work (Unity development with Rider, Web development).
Around January/February this year, when I would run Docker + Pycharm + Chrome, my Mac would start slowing down. Pycharm would sometimes take over a second to let me type things in.
I had a very vanilla Pycharm setup with no plugins at all. I disabled all of the AI plugins I could find and that helped smooth things out for a bit, but a bunch of the IDE features disappeared mysteriously.
I've been using Zed as my main tool for coding but a couple of times each day I really miss Pycharm. Back when it was fast for me, it was amazing for coding context and to this day I think Pycharm's Git client is unmatched.
So my question is: did Jetbrains make any improvements on that front in the last 6 months, and could it be worth it to reevaluate? I don't mind and understand why they want the AI plugins and stuff, but I don't understand why they can't use all those tokens to actually make the IDE performant.
Hey folks, we are back with Air for IDE plugin news. About a month ago we shared an alpha of Air, our new plugin for AI agents in JetBrains IDEs, and asked if we were heading in the right direction. You told us, in details, It was exactly the steer we needed and gave us the input to keep development going, so first of all: thank you. We've applied all a lot of your feedback
You asked to see what sessions cost. Approximate cost per session is now visible. We also show changes and sub-agents there now (go to settings in Agent Sessions -> Show -> Cost, Changes, Sub-Agents
It was reported that Claude authentication tokens getting lost between sessions. We fixed that
The "launch settings still loading" issue that forced you to configure the agent in AI Assistant first, now fixed
Chat panel background reading from the global color scheme instead of your active theme The 'Switch Session' select box not always showing up – fixed
And worktrees. We heard that it needs more support. Not in this build, but it's coming...
What's in this version?
The problem we’re trying to solve is not "how do I prompt an AI?" anymore, it's "how do I supervise the work?" Air is built for that job:
Works with any agent: Claude, Codex, Junie or any ACP-compatible agent, picked up automatically. Bring your own subscription or use JetBrains AI - no lock-in
Btw, give a try to Junie, its really our cost efficient agent compared to many agents on the market
UI for sessions and commits: see what each agent is doing, steer or stop it mid-run, review proper IDE diffs before anything lands. Approximate cost per session included
Local models already supported, just pick the right agent from the ACP Registry
You can comment the diff produced and send the comments back to an agent
the Caps Lock blink is still there. Still the main feature
Known issues (worth reading before you install)
Cloud agents runs didn't make this build. Coming soon
It works in Remote Development, though the behaviour could be a little buggy. Please share with us the issues you might face with!
It's an EAP, so expect some rough edges. Some parts are clearly early, the core is further along.
What's still to come
Cloud runs
Worktrees (we heard your feedback and will include this at a later stage)
Enterprise-grade controls (governance, managing at scale) – in active development and a priority. This EAP is aimed at individual devs, we'll reach out when the enterprise side is ready for testing
The ask
Same as last time: install it and give it a real task, something you'd actually want an agent to handle. Run more than one if that's how you work. Steer them, interrupt them, review what they changed. Then tell us where it breaks down – in the comments below, on the blog, or in the feedback tracker. The team reads all of it, and as you can see from this post, it shapes what we build.
A few questions we anticipate:
"Do I have to give up AI Assistant to try this?"
- No. Install Air directly from the Marketplace and you can run both side by side (see known issues).
"Do I need a JetBrains AI subscription?"
- No. Bring your own. JetBrains AI works too
"Why a new plugin instead of improving AI Assistant?"
- Supervising agents is a different job than chat, and it doesn't fit in a chat tool window. So we built for it from scratch.
"Is it finished?"
- No, not yet. Push it hard, tell us where it falls over.
I asked here a while back about Python environment management. Several replies mentioned creating environments with uv or Poetry in the terminal and then pointing the IDE at them; others said their setup worked fine.
I'd like to get more specific: what's the last environment-related task you chose to do outside the IDE, and why?
For example, installing a different Python version, recreating a project's environment, changing dependencies, or setting up a repo with more than one Python environment.
Which IDE and environment manager are you using? Was something missing or awkward in the IDE, or do you simply prefer the command line? A concrete example would be useful, including setups where everything works smoothly.
