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IDE Integration

altimate-code integrates with your IDE via the Altimate Workspaces extension — listed as Altimate Workspaces in the Marketplace (it was called Datamates before version 0.10.0) — 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 Altimate Workspaces extension requires this to be installed for the chat and tools to function.

Install the Extension

Install the Altimate Workspaces extension for your IDE:

  • VS Code — Microsoft Marketplace
  • Cursor / other VS Code-compatible editors — Open VSX Registry
  • Windsurf — Install via the built-in extension marketplace (search "Altimate Workspaces")

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 Workspaces
  3. Select Altimate Workspaces: 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. 1M tokens free to get started — no API keys to manage

Full Altimate Workspaces documentation

The Altimate Workspaces extension offers more than Altimate Code Chat: integrations, knowledge, memory and skills from your workspace. See the Workspaces documentation for full setup guides, integration configuration, and feature details.