AI-assisted development

Claude Code in VS Code

Claude Code is Anthropic’s AI coding assistant that runs directly in your terminal and IDE. It can read your codebase, edit files, run commands, and help you build and debug software.

Installation

  1. If you don’t have one already, sign up for an Anthropic account.
  2. In VS Code, install the Claude Code extension (see installation details)
  3. Open the Claude Code panel (Ctrl+Shift+P, then “Claude Code: Open”).
  4. Follow the prompts to authenticate with your Anthropic account.

Usage

  • Open the Claude Code panel in VS Code and type your request in natural language.
  • Claude Code can read and edit files, run terminal commands, search your codebase, and more.
  • Use /help within Claude Code for a full list of commands.

Installing the Starsim AI plugin

The starsim-ai plugin gives Claude Code specialized knowledge about the Starsim framework – including architecture, style conventions, and API patterns.

To install:

  1. Type / to see the command menu (or click on the slash button)
  2. Click on “Manage plugins”
  3. Go to “Marketplaces”
  4. Add https://github.com/starsimhub/starsim_ai
  5. Select “Starsim-AI” (and any other plugins you want from that marketplace)
  6. Go back to the list of plugins, find Starsim-AI, and click “Install”.
  7. Restart VS Code.

Once installed, Claude Code will automatically use the plugin’s skills when you’re working on Starsim projects. This includes guidance on:

  • Simulation setup and configuration
  • Disease models, networks, and interventions
  • Calibration and analysis
  • Starsim coding style and conventions

Note: While Claude usually picks up the Starsim-AI plugin automatically, you can also ask to use it explicitly, e.g. “Use the Starsim-AI plugin to help me create tests for this project.”

Cursor

AI support is built into Cursor; there isn’t any additional setup.

You can install plugins the same way in Cursor as Claude Code.