If you use IntelliJ with Illuminated Cloud, you’re already doing the heavy lifting. Adding the AI Assistant just makes the boring parts of Salesforce dev move faster. It’s basically a specialized search engine that lives in your sidebar.
What it actually does for Apex
- The “I hate writing tests” button: Highlight a method, right-click, and tell it to write the test class. It’s not perfect, but it handles the System.runAs, the @TestSetup, and the basic System.assertEquals lines so you don’t have to.
- The SOQL Shortcut: Instead of clicking through Schema Builder to find a field name, you can just type // Get all contacts where the account is active and let the AI fill in the query.
- Fixing “Variable does not exist”: If you have a weird null pointer or a syntax error, the AI can usually spot the missing bracket or the typo in a second.
Using it for Lightning (LWC)
- HTML/CSS help: If you can’t remember the exact SLDS (Salesforce Lightning Design System) class for a specific button layout, just ask the AI to “make this div look like a standard Salesforce card.”
- Boilerplate JS: It’s great at writing the @wire service calls and handling the basic then/catch logic for calling Apex from your JavaScript.
Simple Setup Tips
If you’re going to use it, do these three things to keep it from being annoying:
- Use the “Explain” feature on old code: If you inherited a giant, undocumented Trigger from five years ago, highlight it and click Explain Code. It gives you a bulleted list of what the code is doing. It’s a lifesaver for onboarding.
- Create a .aiignore file: This is important. Put your .sfdx folder and any local data files in here. It tells the AI, “Don’t look at these files.” It keeps your local config private.
- Prompt for “Bulkification”: If you write a quick loop, you can ask the AI: “Is this bulkified?” It will point out if you accidentally put a SOQL query inside a for loop (the classic Salesforce mistake).
The Bottom Line
It’s a tool for your belt. It won’t build your org for you, but it will save you from typing the same testMethod headers a thousand times.