Formerly called Amazon CodeWhisperer, Amazon Q Developer is a generative AI assistant from AWS that enhances software development through code generation, task automation, and AWS expertise.

It provides real-time code suggestions in IDEs like VS Code and JetBrains. Suggestions range from cover snippets to full functions, based on comments and code context. Inline chat allows direct questions in the editor.

Agentic capabilities enable autonomous execution of complex tasks. These include feature implementation, unit testing, documentation, code reviews, refactoring, and upgrades. Agents read and write files, generate diffs, run commands, and incorporate user feedback.

AWS integration offers guidance in the console, Teams, and Slack. It optimizes costs, troubleshoots incidents, diagnoses networking, and follows well-architected patterns. Data tasks involve natural language queries, pipeline coding, and ML model design with governance.

Security features scan vulnerabilities across languages and suggest fixes. Customization connects to private repositories for relevant recommendations and codebase queries. CLI support includes autocompletions and bash translation.

Competitors include GitHub Copilot for suggestions, Tabnine for privacy focused completion, and Cody for codebase search. Amazon Q leads in agentic tasks and AWS depth. The Free Tier offers 50 chats and 1,000 lines per month, with usage-based pricing thereafter.

Test in a small project to gauge fit before full adoption.