How AI IDEs Actually Work - Under the Hood
When we ask an agentic IDE like antigravity to “explain this” or “write code like this”, what actually changes? And how does it return exactly what we asked for? Let’s break down what’s happening u...
Source: DEV Community
When we ask an agentic IDE like antigravity to “explain this” or “write code like this”, what actually changes? And how does it return exactly what we asked for? Let’s break down what’s happening under the hood. Overall Workflow User Prompt ↓ Context Builder (files, code, selection, search) ↓ LLM (predicts next action) ↓ Tool Call (if needed) ↓ Execution Layer (file update / command run) ↓ Result returned ↓ LLM again (decides next step) ↓ Final response / more actions 1. It Starts With Context — Not Your Prompt The IDE does NOT send only your prompt. It constructs a combined input: Prompt + Code + Context + Tools Context includes: Current file Selected code Nearby code Related files (via search) Available tools 2. Context Window — Why Results Differ LLMs operate within a limited context window. They: only see what is provided do not understand your entire project do not know your intent beyond context there is a reason why IDE's perform better with developers then so called non devs as
