Autocomplete

Deep dive into Continue’s autocomplete functionality and configuration

Setting up with Codestral (recommended)

If you want to have the best autocomplete experience, we recommend using Codestral, which is available through the Mistral API. To do this, obtain an API key and add it to your config:

Hub

Mistral Codestral model block

Codestral API Key: The API keys for Codestral and the general Mistral APIs are different. If you are using Codestral, you probably want a Codestral API key, but if you are sharing the key as a team or otherwise want to use api.mistral.ai, then make sure to set "apiBase": "https://api.mistral.ai/v1" in your tabAutocompleteModel.

Setting up with Ollama (default)

If you’d like to run your autocomplete model locally, we recommend using Ollama. To do this, first download the latest version of Ollama from here. Then, run the following command to download our recommended model:

ollama run qwen2.5-coder:1.5b

Then, add the model to your configuration:

Hub

Ollama Qwen 2.5 Coder 1.5B model block

Once the model has been downloaded, you should begin to see completions in VS Code.

NOTE: Typically, thinking-type models are not recommended as they generate more slowly and are not suitable for scenarios that require speed.

However, if you use any thinking-switchable models, you can configure these models for autocomplete functions by turning off the thinking mode.

For example:

YAML

config.yaml

models:
  - name: Qwen3 without Thinking for Autocomplete
    provider: ollama
    model: qwen3:4b   # qwen3 is a thinking-switchable model
    roles:
      - autocomplete
    requestOptions:
      extraBodyProperties:
        think: false  # turning off the thinking

Then, in the continue panel, select this model as the default model for autocomplete.

Configuration Options

Hub Autocomplete models

Explore autocomplete model configurations on the hub

Autocomplete User Settings

The following settings can be configured for autocompletion in the IDE extension User Settings Page:

• Multiline Autocompletions: Controls multiline completions for autocomplete. Can be set to always, never, or auto. Defaults to auto
• Disable autocomplete in files: List of comma-separated glob pattern to disable autocomplete in matching files. E.g., ”_/.md, */.txt”

config.json Configuration

The config.json configuration format (deprecated) offers further configuration options through tabAutocompleteOptions. See the JSON Reference for more details.

FAQs

I want better completions, should I use GPT-4?

Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is no. The models that we suggest for autocomplete are trained with a highly specific prompt format, which allows them to respond to requests for completing code (see examples of these prompts here). Some of the best commercial models like GPT-4 or Claude are not trained with this prompt format, which means that they won’t generate useful completions. Luckily, a huge model is not required for great autocomplete. Most of the state-of-the-art autocomplete models are no more than 10b parameters, and increasing beyond this does not significantly improve performance.

I’m not seeing any completions

Follow these steps to ensure that everything is set up correctly:

1. Make sure you have the “Enable Tab Autocomplete” setting checked (in VS Code, you can toggle by clicking the “Continue” button in the status bar, and in JetBrains by going to Settings -> Tools -> Continue).
2. Make sure you have downloaded Ollama.
3. Run ollama run qwen2.5-coder:1.5b to verify that the model is downloaded.
4. Make sure that any other completion providers are disabled (e.g. Copilot), as they may interfere.
5. Check the output of the logs to find any potential errors: cmd/ctrl + shift + P -> “Toggle Developer Tools” -> “Console” tab in VS Code, ~/.continue/logs/core.log in JetBrains.
6. Check VS Code settings to make sure that "editor.inlineSuggest.enabled" is set to true (use cmd/ctrl + , then search for this and check the box)
7. If you are still having issues, please let us know in our Discord and we’ll help as soon as possible.

Completions are only ever single-line

To ensure that you receive multi-line completions, you can set "multilineCompletions": "always" in tabAutocompleteOptions. By default, it is "auto". If you still find that you are only seeing single-line completions, this may be because some models tend to produce shorter completions when starting in the middle of a file. You can try temporarily moving text below your cursor out of your active file, or switching to a larger model.

Can I configure a “trigger key” for autocomplete?

Yes, in VS Code, if you don’t want to be shown suggestions automatically you can:

1. Set "editor.inlineSuggest.enabled": false in VS Code settings to disable automatic suggestions
2. Open “Keyboard Shortcuts” (cmd/ctrl+k, cmd/ctrl+s) and search for editor.action.inlineSuggest.trigger
3. Click the ”+” icon to add a new keybinding
4. Press the key combination you want to use to trigger suggestions (e.g. cmd/ctrl + space)
5. Now whenever you want to see a suggestion, you can press your key binding (e.g. cmd/ctrl + space) to trigger suggestions manually

Is there a shortcut to accept one line at a time?

This is a built-in feature of VS Code, but it’s just a bit hidden. Follow these settings to reassign the keyboard shortcuts in VS Code:

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+P, type the command: Preferences: Open Keyboard Shortcuts, and enter the keyboard shortcuts settings page.
2. Search for editor.action.inlineSuggest.acceptNextLine.
3. Set the key binding to Tab.
4. Set the trigger condition (when) to inlineSuggestionVisible && !editorReadonly. This will make multi-line completion (including continue and from VS Code built-in or other plugin snippets) still work, and you will see multi-line completion. However, Tab will only fill in one line at a time. Any unnecessary code can be canceled with Esc. If you need to apply all the code, just press Tab multiple times.

How to turn off autocomplete

VS Code

Click the “Continue” button in the status panel at the bottom right of the screen. The checkmark will become a “cancel” symbol and you will no longer see completions. You can click again to turn it back on.

Alternatively, open VS Code settings, search for “Continue” and uncheck the box for “Enable Tab Autocomplete”.

You can also use the default shortcut to disable autocomplete directly using a chord: press and hold ctrl/cmd + K (continue holding ctrl/cmd) and press ctrl/cmd + A. This will turn off autocomplete without navigating through settings.

JetBrains

Open Settings -> Tools -> Continue and uncheck the box for “Enable Tab Autocomplete”.

Feedback

If you’re turning off autocomplete, we’d love to hear how we can improve! Please let us know in our Discord or file an issue on GitHub.