The platform does not tie you to one tool. The shared configuration in your project’s local-configuration repository feeds all supported editors and AI agents with the same rules and settings. The setup app installs the tools on request and opens projects with one click in the program you set as the default tool in its settings.
Recommended starting point: VS Code
For getting started we recommend Visual Studio Code, for three reasons. The Application Platform extension, which the setup app installs alongside, shows a welcome page with all repositories of the project and starts every application with a button that runs ap run-local, so you do not have to memorize commands. VS Code is free, runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, and is available as VS Code Web in the browser inside a remote workspace. And because Cursor and Antigravity are built on VS Code, the same extension works there too; switching later does not change your settings. What the extension does in detail is described in Cursor, VS Code and Antigravity.
If you work with AI agents
Claude Code and Codex run as agents in the terminal or as desktop apps and can be combined with any editor. They read AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md from local-configuration and therefore know the platform rules before you write the first prompt. The differences between the two are covered in Claude Code and Codex. Cursor and Antigravity bring their agent inside the editor and read the same rules.
JetBrains
IntelliJ IDEA and other JetBrains IDEs work with platform projects, because the code consists of ordinary Git repositories. The integration is leaner: there is no extension, you start applications in the terminal with ap run-local, and you create run configurations yourself. What the platform provides there is described in JetBrains.
You maintain your own working rules for all agents in one place, as described in Your own rules for AI agents.