The AI Toolkit for Visual Studio Code streamlines AI agent development by providing a unified platform for exploring, testing, and building agents. It targets developers and researchers looking to efficiently experiment with various AI models and integrate them into applications. The toolkit simplifies prompt engineering, model evaluation, and agent creation with integrated tools and a user-friendly interface.

How It Works

The toolkit offers a comprehensive suite of features within VS Code, including a Model Catalog for discovering models from providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, GitHub, and local ONNX/Ollama instances. Its Playground allows interactive testing, while the Prompt Builder facilitates iterative prompt refinement and chaining. For evaluation, it supports bulk runs against datasets with built-in metrics (F1, relevance, coherence) and custom evaluators. Agents can integrate external tools via the Model Control Protocol (MCP).

Quick Start & Requirements

• Install via the VS Code Extensions Marketplace.
• Requires Visual Studio Code.
• Supports local model execution via ONNX and Ollama, which may have their own hardware requirements (e.g., GPU for ONNX).
• Refer to the official documentation for detailed setup and model integration.

Highlighted Details

• Supports multi-modal model testing in the Playground.
• Enables agent evaluation against datasets using standard and custom metrics.
• Facilitates agent development with prompt generation, chaining, and tool integrations via MCP.
• Includes features for fine-tuning models and generating production-ready code.

Maintenance & Community

• Developed by Microsoft.
• Community feedback is encouraged via GitHub issues.
• Developer documentation is available.

Licensing & Compatibility

• The specific license is not explicitly stated in the provided README. Further clarification on licensing terms, especially for commercial use, is recommended.

Limitations & Caveats

• The README mentions "a lot of features are coming soon," indicating ongoing development and potential for breaking changes.
• Telemetry data is collected by default, though it can be disabled.
• The license type requires verification for commercial adoption.