Amazon has announced enhancements to Amazon Q Developer, including agents that automate unit testing, documentation generation, code reviews, and a capability to help users "address operational issues".

Amazon Q Developer is a generative artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant for software development that can be used from a range of tools including the AWS Management Console, through a new integrated offering with GitLab, and from IDEs.

Amazon Q Developer is available as an extension for JetBrains, Visual Studio Code, and Visual Studio. In the IDE text editor, it suggests code as you type or write entire functions from a comment you enter. 

The first improvement to Amazon Q Developer is the ability to autonomously identify and generate unit tests. From the IDE, a developer can just type "/test" in the Amazon Q Developer chat window or highlight the relevant block of code, right click, and select "test." Amazon Q Developer then identifies and generates tests and adds those tests to the project. In GitLab, developers can use Amazon Q Developer with the "/q test" quick action on a merge request to automatically generate tests for the code.

A second improvement is the ability to get Amazon Q Developer to generate and maintain documentation. Documentation creation works from both the IDE and via the integrated offering with GitLab. Developers can simply type "/doc" in the IDE chat to begin producing and updating README files in their repository. Developers can also ask Amazon Q questions about how code works or use it to improve existing documentation for better readability. Amazon Q Developer presents its proposed changes for the documentation, so developers can check that the updates are accurate.

Another improvement is the ability to use Amazon Q Developer in code reviews by automatically checking for code quality, duplication, and security vulnerabilities. As with the other additions, this improvement is initiated via a / command, in this case in the IDE, developers type "/review" in the chat, and Amazon Q will flag suspicious code patterns, identify open source package risks, and assess the potential impact of releasing changes to production. Amazon Q will also use the context it has from the developer's merge request to adjust its recommendations. When developers review their merge requests, they can invoke "/q review" through GitLab Duo with Amazon Q to receive feedback and streamline the review process.

The final improvement is to better manage 'operational issues'. If an Amazon CloudWatch alarm goes off, Amazon Q Developer can automatically start investigating, sifting through hundreds of thousands of data points before presenting users with potential reasons for the root cause of the issue and how to fix it.

Users can also initiate an investigation when checking system signals, like a latency spike or logs showing users running into an error, across the AWS Management Console by selecting "Investigate" or from the Amazon Q chat by asking about their AWS resources. Throughout an investigation, Amazon Q compiles all findings, actions, and suggested next steps in Amazon CloudWatch for the team to collaborate on and learn from to prevent future issues.

The updated version of Amazon Q Developer is available now.

More Information

Amazon Q Developer

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