Project IDX allows you to use all your favourite IDE extensions and themes, but also offers AI assistance through tools like Gemini Code Assist. It also has one-click integration to many Google products such as Firebase Hosting or deploying your app to Cloud Run. A really handy feature of IDX is the ability to share a workspace with a colleague so you can collaborate and develop together in real time! …
This guide will demonstrate how to develop your Apps script code from within Project IDX, and we will even touch on how to enable Google’s AI Code Assistant to get extra help when writing your App scripts.
The current Apps Script integrated development environment (IDE) has several limitations that can hinder collaboration and productivity. One significant limitation is the lack of real-time collaboration. Multiple users cannot simultaneously edit the same script, making it challenging for teams to work together on projects. This can lead to version control issues and conflicts, especially when multiple developers are making changes concurrently.
Project IDX is an experimental cloud-based IDE developed by Google. IDX is designed to make it easier to create, edit and deploy applications eliminating the tasks of configuring development environments for yourself and your team. For Google Workspace developers already doing local code development using VS Code the interface will be familiar as IDX is also built on Code OSS.
As well as being cloud-based IDX has some useful features built-in including GitHub import, extension and a Gemini code assistant. In addition to real-time collaboration (still highly experimental), IDX features a Gemini-powered code assistant with both a suggestion tool and a sidebar chat agent for code where you can discuss your code and get additional help.
This guide by Josh McMurdo demonstrates how you can set up IDX to develop Google Apps Script projects, including the installation of the clasp command line tool to push/pull code to Apps Script projects. As IDX is able to import existing GitHub repositories if you’ve not done local Apps Script development before I recommend Amit Agarwal’s Google Apps Script Starter kit, which can be cloned in IDX from https://github.com/labnol/apps-script-starter.
Once cloned IDX will automatically run the npm install to add all the dependencies. To switch to your own GitHub repository, create a new repo then in the terminal run the following command replacing YOUR_ACCOUNT and YOUR_REPO:
One other note on Josh’s post you don’t need the Add Gemini API step. IDX comes with Gemini code assist enabled, the Add Gemini API step is only required if you want to use Gemini in your Apps Script solution.
A reminder that Google states “Project IDX is in beta. Project IDX is likely to change and is not subject to any service level agreement (SLA) or deprecation policy. The implementation is subject to change without notice and in future releases. Use caution before proceeding to use IDX in a production environment.” IDX also can’t run Apps Script code so you’ll need to use clasp to push back into your Apps Script project and debug there.
