How AI IDEs Actually Work - Under the Hood

When we ask an agentic IDE like antigravity to “explain this” or “write code like this” , what actually changes? And how does it return exactly what we asked for? Let’s break down what’s happening under the hood. Overall Workflow User Prompt ↓ Context Builder (files, code, selection, search) ↓ LLM (predicts next action) ↓ Tool Call (if needed) ↓ Execution Layer (file update / command run) ↓ Result returned ↓ LLM again (decides next step) ↓ Final response / more actions 1. It Starts With Context — Not Your Prompt The IDE does NOT send only your prompt. It constructs a combined input: Prompt + Code + Context + Tools Context includes: Current file Selected code Nearby code Related files (via search) Available tools 2. Context Window — Why Results Differ LLMs operate within a limited context window. They: only see what is provided do not understand your entire project do not know your intent beyond context there is a reason why IDE's perform better with developers then so called non devs a