​

Enhanced Developer Experience with New Tools and Improved Workflows

April brought significant improvements to Zencoder’s functionality and user experience. We’ve focused on adding powerful new tools like the Bash/Shell tool and Requirements tool, enhancing UX, and making many under-the-hood improvements to make your development workflow more efficient.

Here’s what we’ve been working on:

​

New Tools and Features

​

Bash/Shell Tool for Coding Agent

The Bash tool is now available to the coding agent with significant improvements:

• Improved UX for safe commands that can run without confirmation
• Management options including “Don’t ask again” in both VS Code and JetBrains
• Works seamlessly with Coffee Mode for increased productivity and speed
• Enhanced MCP management of environment variables and npx, making it more stable

​

Requirements Tool

Our new Requirements tool helps the coding agent better understand your needs:

• Automatically asks for clarifications when needed
• Gives you greater control over your project and work
• Better understands prompts and delivers higher-quality results
• Reduces back-and-forth by getting requirements right the first time

​

Enhanced Chat Experience

We’ve made several improvements to the chat interface:

• Added support and hints for using slash commands (/) and file mentions (@) in the chatbox
• New warning system when chats become too long, helping you optimize token usage across multiple chats
• Ability to attach files from outside of the project to provide better context

​

Debugging and Support Improvements

We’ve made it easier to get help when you need it:

• Simplified access to Operation IDs and debug settings to help us troubleshoot issues more effectively

​

Search and Review Enhancements

• Significant improvements to local (client-side) search functionality
• Enhanced /review command is now invoking a pre-built custom agent with the same name, providing more precise and valuable insights
• You can adjust this custom agent’s details in the Custom Agent settings

​

Documentation Updates

• New descriptions and updated GIFs for documentation on both JetBrains and VS Code marketplaces
• Added detailed guides on how to collect debug information and Operation IDs to help with troubleshooting
• Enhanced documentation to make it easier to get support when needed

​

Bugs and Fixes

We’ve addressed several user-facing issues:

• Fixed an annoying bug where indexing sometimes gets stuck at “Updating index” after reopening the IDE
• Fixed a problem with cursor positioning above inserted code snippets
• Improvements to Jira authentication flow
• Fixed hanging errors between the bash/shell tool and our internal processing

Note: We’ve also made many background improvements and fixes that aren’t listed here but contribute to a more stable and reliable experience.

​

Version History