10 Must-Have IntelliJ Plugins to Improve Your Productivity

Many of you loved my list with the 10 Must-Have VS Code Extensions to boost developer productivity so I asked devs who use IntelliJ IDEA: what are your favourite plugins to ship quality code fast? Here are 10 plugins many of you have mentioned:

1. WakaTime

WakaTime allows you to see metrics, insights, and time tracking automatically generated from your programming activity.

You will learn exactly how long you spend coding as it automatically tracks when you start and stop typing, with detailed metrics for projects, file, branch, commit/PR, feature, and more.

2. Stepsize

Shameless plug - Stepsize is the best extension to:

• Bookmark code, create TODOs and report technical debt directly from the editor
• Collaborate with your teammates on maintenance and refactoring work
• Prioritise technical issues during your sprint planning

3. Key Promoter X

The Key Promoter X helps you to learn essential shortcuts while you are working. When you use the mouse on a button inside the IDE, the Key Promoter X shows you the keyboard shortcut that you should have used instead.

This provides an easy way to learn how to replace tedious mouse work with keyboard keys and helps to transition to a faster, mouse free development.

4. ZIO for IntelliJ

ZIO will give you suggestions, refactorings, and other enhancements for Scala's ZIO ecosystem.
The plugin enhances the ZIO library with features, such as:

• Refactorings and suggestions
• Support for zio-macros (e.g. @accessible)
• Integrated test runner

5. Protobuf

IntelliJ-based IDEs Protobuf Language Plugin provides Protobuf language support. Protobuf help with syntax highlighting, importing files from library and SDK, navigation, finding usage, code folding, semantic analysis, quick documentation, and more.

6. SonarLint

SonarLint lets you fix coding issues before they exist: like a spell checker, SonarLint highlights Bugs and Security Vulnerabilities as you write code, with clear remediation guidance so you can fix them before the code is even committed. SonarLint in VS Code supports analysis of JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Java, HTML & PHP code.

7. ESLint

ESLint IntelliJ integration supports displaying eslint warnings as IntelliJ inspections, helps making quick fixes for several rules, support for custom eslint rules, and eslint config annotation and completion.

8. Prettier

The Prettier extension helps code look better and be more consistent. It enforces a consistent style by parsing your code and reprinting it with its own rules that take the maximum line length into account, wrapping code when necessary.

9. Quokka

Quokka.js is a developer productivity tool for rapid JavaScript / TypeScript prototyping. Runtime values are updated and displayed in your IDE next to your code, as you type. It makes prototyping, learning, and testing JavaScript / TypeScript much faster.

10. AceJump

AceJump allows you to quickly navigate the caret to any position visible in the editor. Simply hit "ctrl+;", type a character, then type the matching character to Ace Jump. If no matches can be found on-screen, AceJump will scroll to the next match it can find.