Code Editors: Turn Off Editor AI

VS Code now ships with Copilot chat, inline suggestions, and a lot of prompts. Other extensions (Codex, Claude, Continue, Amazon Q, Tabnine, Codeium, Gemini) add more.

You can turn those off for every project in your user settings. That stays off after you restart VS Code.

This does not block ChatGPT or Claude in a browser. Close those tabs yourself when an assignment says no GenAI.

If you use Cursor, switch to VS Code for no-AI work. Cursor is an AI editor.

Fastest: hide built-in Copilot

This hides VS Code’s own Copilot chat and inline suggestions.

1. Open the Command Palette: Mac Shift + CMD + P or Windows Shift + CTRL + P
2. Run Chat: Learn How to Hide AI Features
3. Turn on Chat: Disable AI Features
4. Reload the window if VS Code asks

Same setting in settings.json:

"chat.disableAIFeatures": true

That setting is enough for Copilot. It does not disable Codex, Claude, Continue, and similar extensions.

Recommended: run the course toggle

The script writes a marked block into your user settings.json. It:

• hides built-in Copilot
• blocks common AI extensions so they stay disabled

Download toggle-editor-ai.py.

Off (stays off until you turn it back on):

python3 toggle-editor-ai.py off

On (removes the course block):

python3 toggle-editor-ai.py on

Then reload: Command Palette → Developer: Reload Window.

The script looks for VS Code settings on Mac, Linux, and WSL. It copies settings.json to settings.json.csci338.bak before it edits.

Paste it yourself

If you would rather not run a script, open Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON) and paste this inside the curly braces. Keep a comma between settings.

"chat.disableAIFeatures": true,
"github.copilot.enable": { "*": false },
"github.copilot.editor.enableAutoCompletions": false,
"extensions.allowed": {
    "*": true,
    "GitHub.copilot": false,
    "GitHub.copilot-chat": false,
    "openai.chatgpt": false,
    "anthropic.claude-code": false,
    "saoudrizwan.claude-dev": false,
    "Continue.continue": false,
    "AmazonWebServices.amazon-q-vscode": false,
    "TabNine.tabnine-vscode": false,
    "Codeium.codeium": false,
    "google.geminicodeassist": false
}

extensions.allowed with "*": true still lets you install normal extensions. The listed AI extensions are blocked.

Check that it worked

1. Reload VS Code.
2. The Copilot / chat icon in the title bar should be gone or inactive.
3. Typing in a file should not show gray AI ghost text.
4. Extensions view should show Copilot, Codex, and Claude as disabled if they were installed.

To turn AI back on, run python3 toggle-editor-ai.py on or delete those keys from settings.json.