posit-dev / posit-dev/positron

Assistant: Option to Fix error in Chat with additional context

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area: assistant investigate
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Description

Feedback

In Positron, there is a Quick Fix and Fix with Assistant option on static errors in source code:

Image

Some users find the inline fixes too aggressive to diff and edit the code, rather than let them provide a bit of context and then send the LLM off to attempt a fix.

I'd love for "Fix with Assistant" to have a counterpart "Fix in Chat". Sometimes the inline fix works and its great, but very often I find that I need to give the assistant more context before it'd be able to give me a reasonable answer and the "Fix with Assistant" gesture moves too quickly because it jumps straight into streaming an answer

The user is aware of the menu option to View in Chat

Image

However:

Yes! But that’s only an option after I’ve started the fix with assistant streaming, usually by then PA is a bit off the rails and it can be hard to get it back on track. (My general LLM experience is that it’s better to get context right from the start than to try to correct the LLM into to the right answer)

Design

We should have an option to open an error in Chat where Assistant will ask for more information and then allow the user to dictate when to start "thinking" of a fix.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

The issue names no files, tests, or entry points. Start by tracing the existing “Fix with Assistant” and “View in Chat” actions, then verify that an error can open Chat for context before streaming begins and that the user can explicitly start the fix.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
ai, frontend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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