The recent release of AppMap Navie has inspired thousands of people to install the AppMap extension, introducing them to AI-enabled development. This week, I have been using our X account to offer content that is not just promotional but also guides new users in expanding their understanding of both AppMap and AI-enabled development in general.
Brevity is key on X, so I tried to keep the message concise while still hitting the core concepts. Let me know how I did in the comments 😉 Here are the slightly more verbose versions...
Keep Your Data Up-to-date
Navie breaks through the 'black box' limitations of the chat interface by allowing you to include detailed context about your app with each question. This context is recorded as AppMap Data. The more current and comprehensive your AppMap data is, the more tailored the AI's answers will be to your coding scenario. By generating AppMap data in your dev environment, you gain the freedom to select which context is used to answer your question. Hence...
Choose the right AI backend for the job
Navie uses GPT-4.5-Turbo as it's default LLM. It's a superb model. We love it. Our users love it. However, it might not always be the best fit. For instance, many large organizations forbid the use of public LLMs and provide their own in-house endpoints. In some cases, users prefer to run models specially tuned to specific jobs via platforms such as Ollama or LM Studio. Consequently, we've built in the capability to specify which LLM you want to use. Here is a demo using LM Studio...
Ask questions in context
The entire AppMap team uses Navie daily, so the developer experience is something we strive to get right.
Weather I am looking for high-level architectural strategies or low-level generated code snippets I need Navie's answers to be at the right zoom level. This requires bundling up context wherever I am working and adding it to my question.
There are more than three ways to 'Ask Navie', but I picked the ones I use the most...
I hope you'll find this helpful.
If you haven't tried AppMap Navie yet, join the party - it is available for free as a VS Code or JetBrain extension. Stay tuned for my next demonstration of Navie using a Nest.JS app!
Bonus
Thanks to Instagram user code.with_sahil07 for this great demo.
Thanks to Shani Shoham for including AppMap on his list of developer productivity tools.
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