Amazon Q Developer Assistant

Overview — Amazon Q Developer is a generative-AI assistant (built on Amazon Bedrock foundation models and augmented with AWS-specific content) that supports software development and operations. It provides agentic coding, code generation, inline completions, unit-testing suggestions, vulnerability scanning, documentation generation and infrastructure analysis.

How it is used — It works within IDEs (such as VS Code, JetBrains, Visual Studio and Eclipse), the AWS Management Console, the AWS Console Mobile app, the command line, and chat apps such as Teams and Slack. It is used to assist with AWS application development, operations, resource troubleshooting, code refactoring, documentation creation and cloud cost analysis, with access controlled through AWS IAM governance and managed service-linked roles.

Scope and limitations — It is not intended for autonomous decision-making; developers retain responsibility for final code and actions.

Human oversight — Developers remain responsible for reviewing and approving all code generated by Amazon Q Developer, which does not autonomously make production commits, so human supervision is required and the system does not override user decisions. Concerns about accuracy, security suggestions or behaviour are escalated through existing developer-review and AWS support channels, with governance managed via IAM identity and internal escalation protocols.

• Speeds up coding and documentation through chat-based agent interaction.
• Automates multi-step refactorings and upgrades (for example, Java and .NET).
• Integrates AWS best practices and resource introspection.
• Improves error diagnosis and operational troubleshooting.
• Supports security scanning and vulnerability detection.
• Leverages IAM and service-linked roles for controlled access.
• Reduces the platform-engineering learning curve when taking ownership of Scottish Government AWS assets.