Tips for using aider?
I'm just now getting into testing out LLM stuff, and I just setup sidekick.nvim + aider using gemini. Are there any tips or suggestions with how to use it well? I've seen stuff around wasp with cursor rules, I didn't know if there was something similar for aider.
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Hi @hadanator. I'm kapa.ai, your friendly support bot. I will try to answer your question by searching through the knowledge base. :wave:
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The knowledge sources mention that aider is a third-party AI pair programming tool that some Wasp users have found helpful for developing Wasp apps, especially when iterating on apps generated by Wasp AI or Mage. However, there are no detailed tips, best practices, or specific "cursor rules" for aider in the context of Wasp documented in the sources provided. The docs simply recommend checking out aider and note that more comprehensive instructions may be added in the future. For now, you can find aider at its GitHub page and experiment with it as you work on your Wasp projects. If you’re looking for Wasp-specific guidance, the official docs and issues suggest that this is an area under active exploration, but no advanced tips or integrations (like cursor rules) are documented yet for aider and Wasp together Developing Existing App with AI.
If you have specific needs or run into issues, the Wasp community recommends reaching out on their Discord for help.
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Sorry @hadanator, I seem to be having a bit of trouble. Don't worry though, I've pinged my support and they will try to fix me up! :technologist:
Perhaps try again in 15mins?
Hey @hadanator, this is not my area, but I know a guy who recently spent a day studying Wasp + AI tools.
Summoning @martinsos
Yeah I had seen some people talking about it here. Wondered if there were any thoughts on it.
@hadanator I respond to summons :D!
I have to admit I haven't yet used Aider much, but I did investigate quite a bit and keep reading about what others do.
From what I am getting, there are 3 "layers" of AI:
1. Integrated chat in the editor: for me that is
gptel in emacs, sidekick is probably playing this role to some degree in nvim.
2. Aider / Cursor / Copilot -> LLM that you can call to write pieces of code for you and is integrated in the IDE, but is not fully "vibe-coding" teritorry, it is more surgical.
3. Claude Code / Codex CLI / Gemini CLI -> more agentic/indepented/vibe experience.
My goal is to have all three so I can choose which level I want at which point.
As for Aider, I don't have super good advice beyond their docs, they talk quite a bit about how to manage context and it makes sense.
Main thing for Wasp is for sure being able to provide docs to the LLM. That would likely be via MCP like context7 which already has wasp docs in it if I am correct, or maybe some other way. Aider unfortunately doesn't have yet MCP support but some kind of its own tool call support.Gotcha, have you tried opencode? I'm not super satisified with aider + sidekick currently. It does weird stuff with copying and pasting code or trying to do anything multiline.
Wohooo @hadanator, you just became a Waspeteer level 6!
Nope I heard about it haven't gotten to it nor am sure I will hah, too many things to try out :D!
Ok that sounds weird, for me Aider seemed to work nice, but I was using it with no edit integration, just their
AI! comments functionality where they watch all files and generated code when they see those comments.