Why is a fork required? I use the cline plugin for VS Code and it seems to be able to be able to more things, like update code directly, create new files, etc.
fork was necessary for the UX we wanted to go for. I do agree that an extension can also satisfy your needs (and it clearly is in your case)
Having a deeper integration with the editor allows for some really nice paradigms:
- Rollbacks feel more native, in the sense that I do not loose my undo or redo stack
- cmd+k is more in line with what you would expect with a floating widget for input instead of it being shown at the very top of your screen which is the case with any extension for now.
Going further, the changes which Microsoft are making to enable copilot editing features are only open to "copilot-chat" and no other extension (fair game for Microsoft IMHO)
So keeping these things in mind, we designed the architecture in a way that we can go towards any interface (editor/extension). We did put energy into making this work deeply with the VSCode ecosystem of APIs and also added our own.
If the editor does not work to our benefit, we will take a call on moving to a different interface and thats where an extension or cloud based solution might also make sense
After using Cursor (another AI focused fork) I'm 100% on the fork train. AI built natively into the IDE presents another layer of speed and isn't subject to the limitations of the extension system (which is awesome in its own right, not a knock on it).
I was on the fork train for awhile but cursors keeps having weird issues with indexing, intellisense, not being able to save files when format on save is enabled I wound up going back to vscode with cline and use openrouter to save money via prompt caching. To my knowledge cursor doesn't have Claude sonnets computer use enabled yet which is a total game changer and cline does I'll check back in a few months but instead of paying 20 a month for cursor pro I can put 20 in credits in openrouter and fully leverage the latest Claude model and features
I've been using it recently to have cline check my local dev server to review it's changes and iterate if there is anything off with the design changes it has made. Example prompt:
I have attached a screenshot of an updated design for the Navbar component. My local dev server is running at localhost:3000. Update the component to match the new designs and double check your changes after save.
