The WHY: The Purpose Behind Traycer

Software development is evolving. AI-powered code generation tools have unlocked tremendous developer productivity. Relevant and to-the-point suggestions have made coding feel like snapping together Legos. However, while AI accelerates code generation, it can overlook context, misinterpret intentions, or introduce errors. Ultimately, developers still bear the critical responsibility of verifying code correctness and functionality.

There is a need for a counterpart to code generation—an AI that can critique the code being written by doing a much deeper analysis than code generation tools. Such a tool can help increase software quality by catching issues and speeding up development time by providing real-time feedback.

Traycer aims to address this need by providing live, context-aware insights inside the integrated development environment (IDE).

The HOW: Our approach

Traycer is a live code analysis tool that runs in the background as you write code. It's like a senior developer who deeply understands your code base and watches all your changes. During analysis, Traycer navigates your code base just like an experienced developer. It will catch subtle bugs and help improve your code's clarity, performance, and security. It will provide code suggestions wherever possible. You can have a conversation in the context of these suggestions to iterate further.

The WHAT: Core offering

Traycer gets installed as a plugin for VS Code. Once activated, Traycer runs in the background, analyzing changes as they happen without interrupting the development flow. Developers can view suggestions and corrections non-intrusively, integrate them as needed, and thus maintain a smooth and efficient coding experience.

Traycer collects relevant context, such as the changes in your code and other related code snippets. It uses state-of-the-art coding models to find issues and refactoring suggestions to improve code quality. Key features are:2

1. Always on: Traycer monitors the specific lines you are editing and understands the intent behind changes. It provides feedback directly relevant to the task, ensuring that suggestions are timely and on-point.
2. Comprehensive: Traycer looks at the changed lines and their impact on surrounding code and the functions that call them. This holistic view helps prevent unforeseen bugs and enhances the overall robustness of your code.
3. Actionable: Traycer provides code suggestions where applicable. These can be previewed and accepted with a single click.
4. Conversations: Developers can converse with Traycer in the context of its feedback.