The Glean Code Tool is a powerful feature within Glean Chat that enhances the way organizations manage and interact with their codebase. By enabling this tool, users gain the ability to search through their deployment's GitHub or GitLab code repository directly from Glean Chat. This functionality is not just about finding code; it's about understanding it, creating snippets, and more.
Enhanced Code Understanding and Debugging
The Glean Code Tool allows users to quickly understand recent changes in the code that might affect a component they are debugging. By looking through recent changes, reading the code, and summarizing it in the context of the question, the tool aids in faster resolution of errors and bugs.
Feature Status and Implementation Insights
Want to know if a feature has been implemented or how it can be enabled? The Glean Code Tool can find the exact flags that need to be flipped, relevant design documents, and provide context around the feature. This is invaluable for teams needing to stay up-to-date with the development progress and feature deployment.
Streamlining Code Implementation
Starting to implement a piece of code can be daunting, especially when it involves multiple files across different directories. The Glean Code Tool can generalize from similar changes in the past, guiding engineers on the files that need to be touched and the code changes that need to be made. This reduces the time spent on planning and increases the focus on actual development.
Setup and Prerequisites
To enable the Glean Code Tool in Glean Chat, organizations need to ensure that GitHub/GitLab is enabled for their deployment and that Glean Chat is activated. The setup involves turning on indexing code by changing deployment configurations and running a full crawl for the deployment for every GitHub/GitLab instance.
Privacy and Security
Privacy and security are paramount. The code contents indexed by the Glean Code Tool are part of the Glean Knowledge index and are handled with the same privacy guarantees as all other content in Glean. If the deployment already has GitHub set up, the API usage and permissions required remain exactly the same, ensuring a secure environment for your codebase.