Assist Copilot Modes
Assist modes tailor the experience to specific development tasks like coding, debugging, and research. Instead of using a single general-purpose tool, you can switch between task-specific modes to simplify your workflow.
As you move from planning to implementation or research to debugging, you don’t need to reconfigure anything. You just switch modes and Assist automatically loads the right model for that job.
Available modes
Assist comes with general modes good for everyday developer tasks:
- Code Mode - your code companion for writing, implementing features, and debugging issues.
- Ask Mode - your knowledge base for answering and explaining all technical questions without modifying your codebase.
- Architect Mode - your system design planner for high-level planning and architecture discussions.
- Debug Mode - your expert debugger for tracking errors and fixing them.
We also have Data Pipeline, DBT, and Streamlit modes for more focused use cases. Learn about them by following the links.
Switching between modes
To change modes, use the dropdown menu next to the chat input.
Code mode
Switch to the Code mode and prompt it to “create a simple SQL query to calculate total orders by a customer.” It generates the SQL shown in the image below.
Ask mode
We provide the prompt “explain YAML configuration.” to the Ask mode. It generates a clear overview of YAML, its key characteristics, syntax, and use cases.
Architect mode
Select the Architect mode and enter the prompt “plan a basic to-do app” to understand its functionalities. It produces a solid plan with app features, architecture diagrams, flowcharts, and tech stack.
Debug mode
Let’s give it a common error like “I’m running ‘dbt run’ and getting a ‘Connection error: Failed to connect to Snowflake’ message. Help me resolve it.” It outlines possible causes and fixes, as shown in the image below.
In the next sections, we’ll explore how specialized modes like Data Pipeline, DBT, and Streamlit can take this even further for data-centric projects.