Hi everyone,
I’m trying to understand what makes JetBrains Air unique compared with other agent frontends like T3 Code.
I haven’t used T3 Code myself yet, so my understanding is only based on what I’ve read and seen so far. From the outside, JetBrains Air and tools like T3 Code seem somewhat similar: both appear to provide a frontend for working with coding agents, managing conversations/tasks, and letting agents interact with a project through files, terminal output, diffs, and user prompts.
One big reason I still like JetBrains ACP inside IDEA is the built-in IDEA MCP server and the ACP Registry integration. It feels very convenient to manage agents while still letting them interact with the IDE via the MCP.
So I’m wondering: does JetBrains Air provide agents with any JetBrains-specific code intelligence beyond plain text file access?
For example, can agents access or benefit from IntelliJ Platform features such as:
- PSI / AST
- symbol indexes
- find usages
- refactoring APIs
- inspections
- run configurations
- project model information
- other IDE-level code intelligence
Or is Air currently more focused on orchestrating existing agents like Codex, Claude Agent, Gemini CLI, and Junie, with context mainly coming from files, terminal output, diffs, and user-provided prompts?
I’m especially asking because the Windows version of JetBrains Air is not available yet, and I’m trying to decide whether it is worth waiting for. If Air is mainly an agent orchestration UI, then it may be similar enough to existing tools. But if it exposes deeper IntelliJ Platform capabilities to agents, that would be a much stronger reason for me to wait for it.
Would love to hear from anyone who has used Air or understands its architecture better.