JetBrains Air in IDEs Help

JetBrains Air in IDEs overview

JetBrains Air in IDEs is a plugin for agentic development. It gives you one place to start coding agents, follow what they are doing, and review the changes they make.

JetBrains Air in IDEs is not an AI service of its own: it is a workspace for running coding agents. Agents come either from your existing local installations or from the agent registry. Depending on the agent and your setup, you can use JetBrains AI, a third-party provider account, or the agent's own authorization flow.

Why use JetBrains Air in IDEs

JetBrains Air in IDEs works with the agents, subscriptions, and IDE setup you already have:

Use the agents you already have installed

JetBrains Air in IDEs detects the coding agents installed on your machine, the same way the IDE detects your system terminal, SDKs, and build tools. An agent that is already present in your environment, such as Codex or Junie, becomes available in the IDE with the configuration it already uses.

Your existing subscriptions, inside the IDE

Use the provider accounts and subscriptions you already have, or configure a provider in JetBrains Air in IDEs. The JetBrains AI subscription is also supported but not required.

Data processing follows the agent or provider

Agents may be provided by JetBrains or third-party vendors. The agent or provider you choose determines how your requests and data are processed. When you use a third-party subscription, your code goes directly to that provider, not through JetBrains. The applicable terms and privacy policies also depend on the selected agent or provider. If you use JetBrains AI, the JetBrains AI Terms of Service apply.

One IDE for agentic and classic work

Agent sessions run in the same environment as the rest of your work, so you can keep using code insight, refactorings, the debugger, and version control on the code an agent produces. Every change an agent makes can be reviewed, edited, or reverted before you keep it.

JetBrains Air in IDEs does not enable AI features automatically, and it requires no login until you authorize an agent.

IDE context for more efficient work

Supported agents that run through JetBrains Air in IDEs can use project information from the IDE and bundled skills instead of exploring the project step by step. This can reduce the number of tokens a task consumes compared with running the same agent outside the IDE.

Different presets for different tasks

Save an agent, model, and access level as a named preset and reuse it instead of reconfiguring a session for each task. Presets work independently of each other, so you can keep one preset for small changes and another for larger, multi-step work.

Comparison with AI Assistant

JetBrains also ships AI Assistant – a collection of AI-powered features that includes coding agents, AI Chat, in-editor code completion, and code insights. JetBrains Air in IDEs is a separate plugin and does not replace or disable AI Assistant.

JetBrains Air in IDEs and AI Assistant cover different parts of AI-powered development:

JetBrains Air in IDEs

AI Assistant

Primary focus

Provides an agentic workspace for running external or self-hosted coding agents and reusing their existing configurations, provider accounts, and subscriptions.

Provides JetBrains AI features, including AI Chat, in-editor code completion, next edit suggestions, code insights, and coding agents.

Agents

Detects coding agents already installed on your machine and makes them available in the IDE. You can also install ACP agents from the registry.

Includes a set of bundled agents and lets you install additional ACP-compatible agents when needed.

AI access

Depending on the agent and your setup, uses JetBrains AI, a provider configured in JetBrains Air in IDEs, or an existing agent authorization. JetBrains Air in IDEs does not provide AI models of its own and does not require a JetBrains AI subscription.

Connects to JetBrains AI models through a JetBrains AI subscription. Other supported activation options include your own API keys and provider accounts.

Workspace

Treats agents and their sessions as units of work. Sessions can use a structured chat or an agent's terminal interface and include presets, session diffs, parallel runs, and dedicated management views.

Integrates AI Chat, agents, and inline assistance into the editor and existing IDE tool windows as companion features.

How JetBrains Air in IDEs works

JetBrains Air in IDEs runs agents on your machine and communicates with ACP-compatible agents through the Agent Client Protocol (ACP). CLI agents run in their own terminal interface. Because ACP is a standard interface, compatible agents can work without a dedicated integration.

Agents become available to JetBrains Air in IDEs in two ways:

  • Local installations – agents already installed on your machine. JetBrains Air in IDEs detects them and makes them available in the IDE.

  • The ACP agent registry – a catalog of ACP-compatible agents that you can browse and install with your consent. By default, JetBrains Air in IDEs uses a JetBrains-provided registry.

A typical session looks like this:

  1. You select an agent for the task.

  2. You authorize the agent if it has no available authorization source yet.

  3. You describe the task in natural language.

  4. The agent works in your project, reading and editing files and running commands.

  5. You review the result and keep, edit, or revert the changes.

Typical JetBrains Air in IDEs session

You select
an agent

You authorize it
if required

You describe
the task

The agent works
in the project

You review
the changes

JetBrains Air in IDEs FAQ

What will happen to the existing AI Assistant plugin?

The existing AI Assistant plugin remains available and supported as a separate plugin. JetBrains Air in IDEs is an experiment for evaluating a different approach to agentic development, and your feedback helps shape its direction.

Which AI subscriptions and providers does JetBrains Air in IDEs currently support?

JetBrains Air in IDEs supports JetBrains AI for compatible agents, as well as a set of third-party providers configured with the credentials they require. You can also use an agent’s own authorization when supported.

How can I access JetBrains Air in IDEs?

Install the JetBrains Air in IDEs plugin from the Marketplace in the 2026.2 version of your IDE, or use it in a 2026.3 EAP build. The plugin does not require a separate license. Depending on the agent and your setup, you can use JetBrains AI, a third-party provider account, or the existing agent configuration.

Can my organization turn off JetBrains Air in IDEs?

Yes. The result depends on how your organization manages AI access:

  • If your organization manages AI access through IDE licenses and disables AI for the license assigned to you, JetBrains Air in IDEs is disabled. Its user interface, agents, and settings become unavailable in the IDE.

  • If your organization manages AI access in JetBrains Central Console and turns it off for you, you lose access to the organization workspace: you can no longer spend its credits or start cloud runs. After you restart the IDE, the workspace no longer appears among the authorization sources. Depending on the AI settings of your organization, other authorization methods, such as the own authorization of an agent or a third-party provider, can remain available.

To request access, contact your organization administrator.

Which IDEs are supported?

The plugin is available in JetBrains IDEs except for Android Studio.

Does JetBrains Air in IDEs work in China?

Yes. The plugin is distributed without geographic restrictions. However, due to territorial restrictions, JetBrains AI cannot be used as an authorization source in China. The availability of other agents and models is regulated by their respective vendors.

Where can I send feedback or bug reports about JetBrains Air in IDEs?

Use the Report a Problem or Submit Feedback actions in the IDE, or create an issue in our YouTrack.

Next steps

30 September 2026
JetBrains Air in IDEsKey concepts