Editor Setup
Your editor is your co-pilot. Configure it once so it stays out of your way and starts pulling its weight. Install VS Code with essential extensions for Python, Jupyter, linting, and remote SSH. Configure format-on-save, type checking, and notebook output scrolling for AI workflows. Set up Remote SSH to edit and debug code on remote GPU machines as if they were local. Evaluate editor alternatives (Cursor, Windsurf, Neovim) and their tradeoffs for AI work. You'll spend thousands of hours inside your editor writing Python, running notebooks, debugging training loops, and SSH-ing into GPU boxes. A misconfigured editor turns every session into friction: no autocomplete, no type hints, no inline errors, manual formatting, and a clunky terminal workflow. The right setup takes 20 minutes. Skipping it costs you 20 minutes every day. An AI engineering editor setup needs five things: VS Code is the recommended editor. It is free, runs on every OS, has first-class Jupyter notebook support, and the extension ecosystem covers everything you need for AI work. Download it from code.visualstudio.com. Verify from the terminal: If code is not found on macOS, open VS Code, press Cmd+Shift+P, type "Shell Command", and select "Install 'code' command in PATH". Open the integrated terminal in VS Code (` Ctrl+ `` on every platform) and install the extensions that matter for AI work:…
Editor Setup: Your editor is your co-pilot. Configure it once so it stays out of your way and starts pulling its weight. Install VS Code with essential…
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