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IDE Integration

altimate-code integrates with your IDE via the Datamates extension, giving you AI-powered chat with 100+ data engineering tools directly in your editor.

Prerequisites

Install the altimate-code CLI globally:

npm install -g altimate-code

The Datamates extension requires this to be installed for the chat and tools to function.

Install the Extension

Install the Datamates extension for your IDE:

Open Altimate Code Chat

After installing the extension:

  1. Press Cmd+Shift+P (macOS) or Ctrl+Shift+P (Windows/Linux) to open the command palette
  2. Type Altimate MCP
  3. Select Altimate MCP: Open Altimate Code Chat

This opens the Altimate Code chat panel where you can interact with altimate agents and use all 100+ data engineering tools.

Features

  • Inline chat with altimate agents — ask questions, run tools, and get results directly in your editor
  • File context awareness — the agent sees your open files and project structure
  • Tool call results inline — SQL analysis, lineage, dbt operations, and more displayed in the chat
  • Agent mode switching — switch between Builder (full read/write), Analyst (read-only), and Plan (minimal access) modes from the command palette
  • 100+ data engineering tools — SQL validation, query optimization, column lineage, dbt model generation, FinOps analysis, schema exploration, and more
  • Session tracing — every chat session is recorded as a trace file (the IDE panel runs altimate-code serve under the hood, which now writes traces just like the terminal). Inspect them with altimate-code trace list / altimate-code trace view <id>. See Traces.

Configuration

The extension uses your existing altimate-code.json config. No additional IDE-specific configuration is required. Warehouse connections, LLM providers, permissions, and agent settings all carry over.

Extension settings

The extension contributes these VS Code settings (Settings → search "altimate"):

Setting Default Description
altimate.altimateCodeRequireConsent false Ask before downloading and installing the altimate-code CLI. By default the extension installs the CLI automatically the first time chat is opened. When enabled, chat shows an install prompt instead — nothing is downloaded until you confirm, and declining shows manual install instructions.
altimate.codeAutoUpdate true Keep the CLI up to date automatically in the background. Checked at most once a day, and only runs when the CLI is already installed.

The extension installs the CLI natively: the release archive is fetched over HTTPS from GitHub releases, verified against the release's checksums.txt (SHA-256), and placed in ~/.altimate/bin — no shell scripts are executed and nothing outside your home directory is modified. Environments that prefer full control can enable altimate.altimateCodeRequireConsent via managed settings, or pre-install the CLI themselves (the extension uses any altimate found on PATH or in ~/.altimate/bin).

LLM Access

You need an LLM to power the chat. Two options:

  • BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) — Free and unlimited. Configure any of the 35+ supported providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, etc.)
  • Altimate LLM Gateway — Managed LLM access with dynamic model routing. 10M tokens free to get started — no API keys to manage

Full Altimate MCP Documentation

The Datamates extension offers additional capabilities beyond Altimate Code Chat, including MCP server integrations, Knowledge Hub, Memory Hub, and Guardrails. See the Altimate MCP documentation for full setup guides, integration configuration, and feature details.