What’s New in IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1

IntelliJ IDEA is evolving as an open platform that allows you to bring the AI tools of your choice into your professional development workflows.

In addition to Junie and Claude Agent, you can now choose more agents in the AI chat, including Codex. Also, Cursor and GitHub Copilot, along with dozens of external agents, are now supported via the Agent Client Protocol. With the new ACP Registry, you can discover available agents and install them in just one click.

Next edit suggestions are now available without consuming the AI quota of your JetBrains AI Pro subscription. These suggestions go beyond traditional code completion for Java, Kotlin, and now Scala. Instead of updating only what’s at your cursor, they intelligently apply related changes across the entire file, helping you keep your code consistent and up to date with minimal effort.

This natural evolution of code completion delivers a seamless Tab Tab experience that keeps you in the flow.

The combination of Kotlin and Jakarta Persistence is popular for server-side development, but since Jakarta Persistence was originally designed for Java, some Kotlin features – like null safety, as well as val and data class semantics – can behave unexpectedly in entities. IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1 addresses these pitfalls with more Kotlin-aware JPA support. Here are a few examples of what you’ll get with the new release:

• Autoconfiguration of Kotlin no-arg and all-open compiler plugins when adding Kotlin to an existing project.
• Removal of redundant no-arg constructions and open modifiers.
• Detection and quick-fixes for the pitfalls, like using data classes and val fields on JPA entities and others.

Read more about these pitfalls in this blog post.

IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1 has improved support for the latest language features in Kotlin 2.3.0, as well as those in 2.3.20. The new versions promote nested type aliases and data-flow exhaustiveness checks for when expressions to stable, and also bring several experimental features that you can already try in IntelliJ IDEA:

• Name-based destructuring destructures by property name rather than position, so changing the order of properties doesn’t break the code (version 2.3.20).
• Explicit backing fields cut boilerplate when you want a property that’s writable internally but read-only to callers (version 2.3.0).
• The unused return value checker warns you when you call something that returns a meaningful result and that result is silently ignored, helping you catch bugs (version 2.3.0).

Spring Debugger now allows you to see the state of your Spring application directly in your code, without pausing its execution. This means no more guessing and no more jumping to the project tree to understand wiring, profile configuration, and the environment. You can detect wrong bean injections, test secured endpoints, and review the application configuration in the running code, saving you time and money on static code analysis.

• Injected beans in code: See the exact bean class that is injected into your Spring component – the bean’s definition, related beans, and navigation to the bean definition class or factory method are now just one-click away.
• Endpoint security inlays [coming 2026.1.X]: See how each Spring MVC endpoint is secured and which rules are in effect and where they come from, view the current user context, and temporarily unlock an endpoint while debugging to verify behavior without editing the configuration – right from the HTTP Client!
• Actual property values [coming 2026.1.X]: View the actual property value used at runtime in the @Value annotation, so you can spot overrides from the environment, run config, or config server faster.

When working with Java, you sometimes need to benefit from the performance of C++ in individual cases, like optimized microservices or native libraries. New C++ plugins for IntelliJ IDEA allow you to stay in your flow without switching tools.

The C/C++ Language Support plugin provides first-class coding assistance for modern C and C++ development in IntelliJ IDEA. It equips you with advanced code insight, real-time quality checks, and powerful refactorings to ensure your native code is as maintainable and high-quality as your JVM projects.

To enable this support, simply install the CLion plugin. This serves as the core infrastructure, connecting your projects to essential toolchains, debuggers, build systems such as CMake and Meson, the compilation database, vcpkg, and test framework plugins.

Based on the positive feedback and adoption we’ve seen so far, we are continuing to expand command completion to support more Java and Kotlin workflows:

• New AI-powered actions are available via command completion. You can quickly ask the IDE to explain code, generate documentation, or make code changes directly through an integrated prompt dialog – all in context, without leaving the editor.
• All postfix templates can now be discovered and invoked via .., making it easier to use both mechanisms together in a single, consistent flow.
• Command completion is now also available in configuration .properties files. This improves productivity in framework-based projects where configuration and code are closely connected.

Gradle offers multiple ways to configure builds, and not all of them are optimal. This might lead to confusion both for developers and AI agents.

To provide guidance, JetBrains joined forces with Gradle and Google to create a set of official best practices, covering the complex options for users and helping AI agents improve as well. New practices are authored regularly, and over 30 have already been published.

To make this resource even more accessible, IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1 brings the first batch directly to your fingertips as inspections and quick-fixes, with more to come.

We’re continuing to modernize our IDEs, and in this update, we’ve refreshed something you interact with constantly – the editor. Smooth caret animation and updated selection behavior provide improved comfort, a cleaner look, and a more enjoyable coding experience. Read more.

Stop memorizing commands. Start discovering them. In-terminal completion helps you instantly explore available subcommands and parameters as you type. Whether you're working with complex CLI tools like Git, Docker, or kubectl or using your own custom scripts, this feature intelligently suggests valid options in real time.

Previously introduced for Bash and Zsh shells, it is now also available in PowerShell.

Modern software development increasingly relies on Dev Containers for defining consistent, professional-grade environments. While IntelliJ IDEA has long supported these via Remote Development mode, a more streamlined approach is now available to keep you in the flow.

Starting with IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1, you can open projects from a Dev Container natively in your local IDE. Unlike previous methods that required a full IDE backend inside the Dev Container, this new agent-based architecture provides a high-performance connection to the file system without draining system resources. This reduces cognitive load and setup time, ensuring you stay focused on your most important tasks.

You can now manage your Terraform infrastructure with more clarity and control by working with Terraform Stacks directly in the IDE. Benefit from code completion, get a better understanding of the structure, create new components and deployments, and jump between them with ease. Stay oriented in complex infrastructure setups.

Working with Kubernetes in IntelliJ IDEA is now more straightforward than ever before. We created a dedicated welcome screen that guides you to get the most out of your cluster workflow. You can study features, connect to clusters, select context with ease, apply configs, view the resource tree, examine logs, and debug – all without leaving your IDE.

With the unified IntelliJ IDEA, we are striving to provide the best experience for every Java and Kotlin developer. Frontend development is a must for most projects, with JavaScript being the default choice.

In version 2026.1, IntelliJ IDEA provides support for JavaScript without requiring an Ultimate subscription, though you will still need one to use advanced productivity features for JavaScript. Learn more.