AI-generated explanations and documentation for JavaScript code

As a JavaScript developer, you know how challenging it can be to work with existing codebases. Often, the code is poorly documented, making it difficult to understand what it does and how it works. That’s why I’ve added two new AI-powered features to the JS Assistant for Visual Studio Code: AI-generated JS-Doc comments and AI-generated explanations for code snippets.

AI-generated JSDoc comments

The JS Assistant can generate documentation for functions and methods. This feature accelerates writing JSDoc comments by providing a pre-filled template you can refine.

AI-generated code explanations

You can generate explanations of JavaScript code snippets to help you understand complex or challenging code passages. While such AI-generated descriptions can sometimes be inaccurate or misleading, they can help accelerate making sense of a legacy codebase. They are best used with your code understanding, e.g., to provide ideas that get you started or unstuck.

These AI-powered actions can help you work more effectively in complex legacy JavaScript code today.

Code explanations and comment generation are early, experimental features. I would love to hear how you think they would be helpful?