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Context providers

Context Providers allow you to type '@' and see a dropdown of content that can all be fed to the LLM as context. Every context provider is a plugin, which means if you want to reference some source of information that you don't see here, you can request (or build!) a new context provider.

As an example, say you are working on solving a new GitHub Issue. You type '@Issue' and select the one you are working on. Continue can now see the issue title and contents. You also know that the issue is related to the files 'readme.md' and 'helloNested.py', so you type '@readme' and '@hello' to find and select them. Now these 3 "Context Items" are displayed inline with the rest of your input.

Context Items

Built-in Context Providers​

You can add any built-in context-providers in your config file as shown below:

@File​

Reference any file in your current workspace.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: file

@Code​

Reference specific functions or classes from throughout your project.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: code

@Git Diff​

Reference all of the changes you've made to your current branch. This is useful if you want to summarize what you've done or ask for a general review of your work before committing.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: diff

@Current File​

Reference the currently open file.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: currentFile

@Terminal​

Reference the last command you ran in your IDE's terminal and its output.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: terminal

@Docs​

Reference the contents from any documentation site.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: docs

Note that this will only enable the @Docs context provider.

To use it, you need to add a documentation site to your config file. See the docs page for more information.

@Open​

Reference the contents of all of your open files. Set onlyPinned to true to only reference pinned files.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: open
    params:
      onlyPinned: true

@Web​

Reference relevant pages from across the web, automatically determined from your input.

Optionally, set n to limit the number of results returned (default 6).

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: web
    params:
      n: 5

@Codebase​

Reference the most relevant snippets from your codebase.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: codebase

Read more about indexing and retrieval here.

@Folder​

Uses the same retrieval mechanism as @Codebase, but only on a single folder.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: folder

Reference the results of codebase search, just like the results you would get from VS Code search.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: search

This context provider is powered by ripgrep.

@Url​

Reference the markdown converted contents of a given URL.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: url

@Clipboard​

Reference recent clipboard items

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: clipboard

@Tree​

Reference the structure of your current workspace.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: tree

@Problems​

Get Problems from the current file.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: problems

@Debugger​

Reference the contents of the local variables in the debugger. Currently only available in VS Code.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: debugger
    params:
      stackDepth: 3

Uses the top n levels (defaulting to 3) of the call stack for that thread.

@Repository Map​

Reference the outline of your codebase. By default, signatures are included along with file in the repo map.

includeSignatures params can be set to false to exclude signatures. This could be necessary for large codebases and/or to reduce context size significantly. Signatures will not be included if indexing is disabled.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: repo-map
    params:
      includeSignatures: false # default true

Provides a list of files and the call signatures of top-level classes, functions, and methods in those files. This helps the model better understand how a particular piece of code relates to the rest of the codebase.

In the submenu that appears, you can select either Entire codebase, or specify a subfolder to generate the repostiory map from.

This context provider is inpsired by Aider's repository map.

@Operating System​

Reference the architecture and platform of your current operating system.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: os

Model Context Protocol​

The Model Context Protocol is a standard proposed by Anthropic to unify prompts, context, and tool use. Continue supports any MCP server with the MCP context provider. Read their quickstart to learn how to set up a local server and then set up your configuration like this:

Package or config.yaml
mcpServers:
  - name: My MCP Server
    command: uvx
    args:
      - mcp-server-sqlite
      - --db-path
      - /Users/NAME/test.db

You'll then be able to type "@" and see "MCP" in the context providers dropdown.

Prompt Files​

See Prompt Files. Prompt files are not added directly to the config file; prompt files are parsed and injected into the config automatically, to be used like other context providers.

@Issue​

Reference the conversation in a GitHub issue.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: issue
    params:
      repos:
        - owner: continuedev
          repo: continue
      githubToken: ghp_xxx

Make sure to include your own GitHub personal access token to avoid being rate-limited.

@Database​

Reference table schemas from Sqlite, Postgres, MSSQL, and MySQL databases.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: database
    params:
      connections:
        - name: examplePostgres
          connection_type: postgres
          connection:
            user: username
            host: localhost
            database: exampleDB
            password: yourPassword
            port: 5432
        - name: exampleMssql 
          connection_type: mssql
          connection:
            user: username
            server: localhost
            database: exampleDB
            password: yourPassword
        - name: exampleSqlite
          connection_type: sqlite
          connection:
            filename: /path/to/your/sqlite/database.db

Each connection should include a unique name, the connection_type, and the necessary connection parameters specific to each database type.

Available connection types:

  • postgres
  • mysql
  • sqlite

@Postgres​

Reference the schema of a table, and some sample rows

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: postgres
    params:
      host: localhost
      port: 5436
      user: myuser
      password: catsarecool
      database: animals
      schema: public
      sampleRows: 3

The only required settings are those for creating the database connection: host, port, user, password, and database.

By default, the schema filter is set to public, and the sampleRows is set to 3. You may unset the schema if you want to include tables from all schemas.

Here is a short demo.

@Google​

Reference the results of a Google search.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: google
    params:
      serperApiKey: <YOUR_SERPER.DEV_API_KEY>

For example, type "@Google python tutorial" if you want to search and discuss ways of learning Python.

Note: You can get an API key for free at serper.dev.

@Gitlab Merge Request​

Reference an open MR for this branch on GitLab.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: gitlab-mr
    params:
      token: "..."

You will need to create a personal access token with the read_api scope.

Using Self-Hosted GitLab​

You can specify the domain to communicate with by setting the domain parameter in your configurtion. By default this is set to gitlab.com.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: gitlab-mr
    params:
      token: "..."
      domain: "gitlab.example.com"

Filtering Comments​

If you select some code to be edited, you can have the context provider filter out comments for other files. To enable this feature, set filterComments to true.

@Jira​

Reference the conversation in a Jira issue.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: jira
    params:
      domain: company.atlassian.net
      token: ATATT...

Make sure to include your own Atlassian API Token, or use your email and token, with token set to your password for basic authentication. If you use your own Atlassian API Token, don't configure your email.

Jira Datacenter Support​

This context provider supports both Jira API version 2 and 3. It will use version 3 by default since that's what the cloud version uses, but if you have the datacenter version of Jira, you'll need to set the API Version to 2 using the apiVersion property.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: jira
    params:
      apiVersion: "2"

Issue Query​

By default, the following query will be used to find issues:

assignee = currentUser() AND resolution = Unresolved order by updated DESC

You can override this query by setting the issueQuery parameter.

@Discord​

Reference the messages in a Discord channel.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: discord
    params:
      discordKey: "bot token"
      guildId: "1234567890" 
      channels:
        - id: "123456"
          name: "example-channel"
        - id: "678901" 
          name: "example-channel-2"

Make sure to include your own Bot Token, and join it to your related server . If you want more granular control over which channels are searched, you can specify a list of channel IDs to search in. If you don't want to specify any channels, just include the guild id(Server ID) and all channels will be included. The provider only reads text channels.

@HTTP​

The HttpContextProvider makes a POST request to the url passed in the configuration. The server must return 200 OK with a ContextItem object or an array of ContextItems.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: http
    params:
      url: "https://api.example.com/v1/users"

The receiving URL should expect to receive the following parameters:

POST parameters
{
  query: string,
  fullInput: string
}

The response 200 OK should be a JSON object with the following structure:

Response
[
  {
    "name": "",
    "description": "",
    "content": ""
  }
]

// OR
{
  "name": "",
  "description": "",
  "content": ""
}

@Commits​

Reference specific git commit metadata and diff or all of the recent commits.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: commit
    params:
      Depth: 50
      LastXCommitsDepth: 10

The depth is how many commits will be loaded into the submenu, defaults to 50. The LastXCommitsDepth is how many recent commits will be included, defaults to 10.

@Greptile​

Query a Greptile index of the current repo/branch.

Package or config.yaml
context:
  - provider: greptile 
    params:
      greptileToken: "..."
      githubToken: "..."

Requesting Context Providers​

Not seeing what you want? Create an issue here to request a new Context Provider.