An Introduction to Cline: Your AI-Powered Development Assistant in VS Code

Knowledge Articles
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What is Cline?

Cline is an intelligent, AI-powered development assistant seamlessly integrated into Visual Studio Code (VS Code). Designed to enhance productivity, reduce context-switching, and supercharge your coding workflow, Cline leverages the power of SambaNova’s large language models (LLMs) to provide real-time assistance across a range of development tasks.

Whether you’re debugging, writing documentation, generating code snippets, or exploring unfamiliar APIs, Cline is your always-available coding copilot.

What is Cline? - Cline

Key Features

Feature Description
Code Suggestions Get real-time, context-aware completions and intelligent suggestions.
Code Explanation Select any code block and let Cline explain it in plain English.
Bug Detection Identify and suggest fixes for common logic and syntax issues.
Test Case Generation Instantly generate unit tests for your functions and classes.
Commenting & Docs Auto-generate docstrings, comments, or README snippets.
Multi-language Support Supports Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, Go, and more.
SambaNova Model Integration Uses secure SambaNova Cloud APIs for enhanced AI reasoning.

Installing Cline in VS Code

  1. Open VS Code.
  2. Go to the Extensions tab (Ctrl+Shift+X).
  3. Search for “Cline – AI Assistant by SambaNova”.
  4. Click Install.
  5. After installation, click on the Cline icon in the activity bar to launch it.

Note: You’ll need a valid SambaNova Cloud API key to activate Cline.

Authentication Setup

  1. Login or sign up at SambaNova Cloud .
  2. Navigate to API Keys → Generate Key.
  3. Copy the key and paste it in VS Code when prompted or set it manually in the extension settings:

export CLINE_API_KEY="your-api-key"

Using Cline in Your Workflow

Once Cline is enabled, here’s how you can use it:

Inline Code Assistance

Start coding — Cline will suggest completions as you type, similar to GitHub Copilot.

Ask Anything

Use the Cline command palette (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + P → “Ask Cline”) to:

  • Summarize a file
  • Generate tests
  • Translate code
  • Refactor functions

Command Examples

  • Explain this function
  • Refactor this block
  • Write a test case for this method
  • Add docstrings to this class

Advanced Integrations

  • Chat Panel: Open an interactive side-panel to ask contextual questions while coding.
  • RAG Support: In enterprise setups, Cline can connect with internal documentation and APIs using RAG (retrieval-augmented generation).
  • Custom Prompts: Define custom templates for repeated tasks like PR descriptions, commit messages, etc.

Security and Privacy

Your code stays safe. All AI processing happens securely via SambaNova Cloud APIs, with encryption and strict data isolation. No source code is stored or logged without your explicit consent.

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