VA Intelligence: AI FAQs

Explain Symbol performs a Find References under the hood, then opens an Explain panel that summarizes what the symbol is, how it is used in the context of your project, and highlights key relationships. If you prefer, you can still run normal Find References without AI. The Explain panel is generated 100 percent locally on your machine using Gemma model via Ollama. No code or prompts leave your computer.
Extensions menu → Visual Assist → Intelligence → install language model → enable VA Intelligence in options.
No. On first use, Visual Assist prompts acceptance of third-party AI terms. Accepting downloads and installs the local AI runtime (Ollama) and model. Files come from Whole Tomato's managed server.
Visual Assist downloads and installs Ollama (local AI runtime) and a compatible local Gemma model. Files are served from Whole Tomato's managed server.

Yes. You can disable the AI feature at any time in the Visual Assist Options dialog. You can re-enable it later in the same place.

If you want to completely uninstall VA Intelligence, you can go to the options dialog → VA Intelligence → click on Remove files. This will completely wipe any AI-related feature by Visual Assist.

No. Processing is 100 percent local. Your source code, prompts, and results never leave your computer. Visual Assist does not send any AI data to Whole Tomato servers or any other server. We do not use your data to train any model.
Only for the initial download of Ollama and the Gemma model from our server. After the one time install, all AI work runs locally with no external calls.
  • Execution is local on your machine. Your code never leaves your environment.
  • Visual Assist communicates with Ollama through its local web server interface. Traffic stays on the local host.
  • The runtime and model are downloaded from an Whole Tomato server that we manage and version pin.
  • We do not transmit your data. We do not log prompts or responses. We do not use your data for training.
  • Gemma is a Google model. While we cannot audit its internals, it runs locally under your control.
Local Gemma model via Ollama. Visual Assist manages the compatible versions for 2026.3.
Open the Options dialog in Visual Assist to enable or disable the AI feature and to review its status.
Visual Assist collects local code context for the selected symbol and its usages. It sends that context to the local Gemma model via Ollama. The model generates an explanation that appears in the IDE. There are no network calls during this operation and no data leaves your machine.
VA Intelligence requires a GPU with 12 GB VRAM minimum and approximately 9 GB of free disk space for the model files. CPU-only is not supported.
Select code in the editor, then press Shift + Alt + Q to open the VA Intelligence menu. Choose Explain with AI or Change Code with AI from there.
Change Code with AI lets you select a block of code, describe the change you want in plain language, review the proposed diff, and accept or reject it. Nothing is applied to your file until you explicitly accept. It ships alongside Explain with AI in Visual Assist 2026.3.
Optimizations, renaming for clarity, small refactors, adding error handling, pattern conversions — the long tail of small-but-tedious edits that pile up. Generation-from-scratch works but the experience is rougher; the feature is optimized for modifying existing selections.
No. Like all VA Intelligence features, Change Code with AI processes entirely on the local model. Your source code, prompts, and diffs never leave your machine.
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