An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development.
The official IDE for InterSystems Data Platform products is Atelier.
We didn't start with a big AI strategy.
We had a legacy InterSystems Caché 2018 application, a lot of old business logic, and a practical need: build a new UI and improve code that had been running for years. At first, I thought an AI coding agent would help only with a small part of the work. Maybe some boilerplate, some REST work around the system, and a bit of help reading old ObjectScript.
In practice, it became much more than that.
Over the past year there have been a few DC articles offering MCP servers designed to connect to IRIS and help the AI features of VS Code and its cousins do a better job. For example:
I'm starting to play more with AI enabled coding.
I've been using Github Copilot inside Visual studio code, which is very good at coming up with autocomplete suggestions that are accurate and useful. (Along with some utter rubbish, naturally).
For web development I'm starting to use Claude Code in VS Code to help create web sites and integrations. I want to see how it can help with IRIS development.
However I can't get claude to read any iris code directly as I'm connected to my server via isfs server connections.
The official InterSystems VS Code extensions are packed with features that make developing with InterSystems products a breeze. Today I'd like to highlight some small but useful features that you may have missed.
You can view all members of the current class, including inherited members, with the click of a button. Just click on the class icon in the top-right corner of the editor window and a filterable list of all members will appear. Clicking on one will reveal it in an editor tab.
Since our previous announcement, we have introduced several incremental improvements to the client‑side editing experience in VS Code. These updates focus on preserving developer‑authored formatting when synchronizing with the server.
Client‑side *.cls files previously lost certain formatting details during compilation, including keyword casing (e.g., classmethod → ClassMethod), normalization of blank lines between class members, and removal of line breaks within parameter lists.
The Interoperability user interface project has continued from 2025.1 and has incorporated many of the items that you – our customers and partners – have suggested and observed. We are continuing to invest in feedback and updating this important user experience. In the latest release, 2026.1 for IRIS, IRIS for Health, Health Connect and Health Connect Cloud, the BPL Editor and Message Viewer/Visual Trace applications are now available for opt-in!
NOTE: