How to Turn On Teaching Mode

Estimated time: 2 minutes
Difficulty: Beginner

Why you'd use this

Teaching Mode is for developers who are learning: students, apprentices, or anyone moving to a new language. With it on, the assistant explains as it works. Each change comes with a short "Why" note on the concept or pattern behind it, bugs are named by their class when fixed, trade-offs are spelled out, and review feedback reads like a senior developer mentoring you rather than a terse diff.

Before you start

Permissions required:

• None.

You'll need:

• Nothing beyond a connected chat.

Steps

1. Click ⚙ in the chat header.
2. Tick Teaching mode (explain changes for learners) and click Save. The same setting is ellmCode.teachingMode in VS Code settings.
3. A Teaching badge appears in the panel header.
4. Ask for a change, for example "Add a retry to the fetch call." Read the "Why" note that precedes the diff card.
5. Run Find Bug on a file. The fix names the bug class, for example an off-by-one or a race condition, and explains how to spot it next time.
6. To turn it off, untick the box and save. The badge disappears.

What you should see

If a change arrives without its explanation, the assistant is asked once per request to supply the missing note in a short follow-up reply, so the teaching is delivered even when the model forgets.

Troubleshooting

• Explanations are too long for experienced users: turn the mode off for that project; it is a per-installation setting, so use a workspace settings file to enable it only on learning projects.

Related guides

• How to Use Quick Commands from the Editor
• How to Make Code Changes with Reviewable Diffs