7 Ways to Use AI in Your Development Workflow

At Idextrus, we build for speed, scale, and resilience. That means constantly evaluating the tools we use and the systems we build. In our ongoing pursuit of productivity, we’ve embraced AI not as a novelty, but as a practical accelerator inside our development workflows.

From code generation to testing, from refactoring to documentation, AI has become an invisible teammate inside our IDEs. Whether it’s Zed, Cursor, or VSCode, the best AI integrations don’t disrupt your flow - they enhance it.

Here are 7 ways our team uses AI every day to write better code, move faster, and build smarter.

Let's break this down:

• Turn Comments into Code
  With tools like Cursor and VSCode Copilot, our developers can write a natural language comment and let AI generate the code underneath. It’s perfect for boilerplate, repetitive logic, or scaffolding ideas without leaving the editor. Think of it like pair programming with a bot who never gets tired.
• Refactor Legacy Code Safely
  Legacy code isn’t going away - but AI can help clean it up. We use AI to propose refactors, identify unused code, and modernize functions without altering logic. In Zed, AI-powered diffs help us quickly preview changes and accept suggestions with precision.
• Generate Unit Tests On Demand
  Testing is essential, but often overlooked. We use AI to instantly generate unit tests based on our functions, saving hours of test-writing while improving coverage. Tools can even explain what a test is doing and identify edge cases we might miss.
• Translate Between Languages (Code & Human)
  Need to understand an old PHP method? AI can explain it in plain English. Need to rewrite that function in Python or Go? Same answer. AI breaks down silos between languages and helps bridge gaps between frontend and backend teams, or junior and senior devs.
• Speed Up Debugging and Stack Tracing
  Ever stared at a 50-line stack trace? AI can parse it instantly, highlight the root cause, and even suggest fixes. In Cursor, we’ve used AI to debug live applications in context - like having a real-time advisor looking over your shoulder.
• Improve Documentation (Without Stopping to Write It)
  Let’s face it: most developers hate writing docs. AI can extract context from your codebase and generate inline comments, READMEs, and even architecture summaries. It’s not just helpful for onboarding - it keeps your codebase self-explanatory.
• Automate Pull Request Reviews
  Before a human even sees the PR, AI gives it a once-over. It flags potential issues, provides code quality suggestions, and explains changes in plain language. We still do manual code reviews, but AI helps us raise the floor and standardize feedback.

Not Just Speed. Leverage.

We don’t believe AI will replace developers - but it will dramatically extend what a focused, disciplined team can accomplish. At Idextrus, we use AI to gain leverage. That means:

• Shipping faster without cutting corners
• Spending more time on architecture and business logic
• Getting junior developers up to speed more quickly
• Reducing context switching and mental overhead

The tooling will keep evolving. But the principle stays the same: use what’s available to build what matters.

Curious how we integrate these tools in our own build and deploy pipelines? Or how we evaluate new tools before bringing them into the stack? Book Now - We can help you!