Using the JetBrains plugin for JavaScript

In this article, you'll learn how to access all the features the JetBrains plugin has to offer for JavaScript.

For JavaScript developers, the JetBrains plugin works for both IntelliJ and Webstorm. From here on, we will assume that you are using Webstorm.

Existing Kite User?

Please restart Kite to see JavaScript completions. 

Prerequisites

The only prerequisites are that you have Webstorm installed (see this guide on installing PyCharm), the Kite Engine running, and the Kite Webstorm plugin installed. If you don't have the Kite Webstorm plugin installed, you can learn how to do so here.

Note: If you installed the plugin while Webstorm was already running, you'll need to restart Webstorm for the plugin to activate.

Checking the Status of Kite

If Kite is installed properly, you should see a small Kite logo at the bottom right corner of the Webstorm window. Clicking this icon opens a menu that will tell you the current status of Kite.

There are a handful of possible states Kite can be in, as described in the following table:

Icon	Message	Description
	Kite is not installed	The Kite Engine is not installed.
	Kite Engine is not running	The Kite Engine is not running.
	Kite is ready and working	Kite is ready to go — start coding!
No icon	No message	This typically means that you are coding in an unsaved file or a filetype that is not   .js  .jsx  .vue

Note:  When you first start the editor, Kite takes 15 seconds to load up the machine learning models that power completions. During that time, you will not see Kite completions.

The menu that appears when clicking the icon will also allow you to access your settings.

Writing code and accessing features

In the following sections, the $ character indicates the position of your editor's text cursor.

Completions

To start, open a JavaScript file. Make sure that this file has been saved with a   .js  .jsx  .vue  extension. Now type the following code:

import R$

A list of suggested completions should automatically appear. Kite's completions are marked with the Kite logo on the left side.

Kite's completions are powered by a deep learning model, so it provides completions for almost all JavaScript code, such as statements, functions, objects, and much more.

Here are ways Kite completions work differently than your typical autocomplete:

Kite can complete up to multiple lines of code at a time, reducing the time you spend writing repetitive code.

Kite is able to provide completions when editors like VS Code cannot understand the code.

Kite shows completions in more situations, for example after a space.

Kite works alongside your editor’s completions. We use carefully-designed filters to reduce noise.

Commands

Kite comes with several actions that you can run.

Other Functionality

For JavaScript, Kite does not yet offer function signatures or Copilot documentation. These features are only available for Python.