CLion 2023.3 features JetBrains AI Assistant, which has now moved beyond the technical preview stage, bringing more context- and project-aware actions to benefit your everyday C++ development workflows. The new release also expands project models support, brings tools for more in-depth code analysis and underlying assembly viewing, and empowers embedded developers with support for device tree files.
JetBrains’ AI Assistant is now generally available with a number of new and improved features to increase your productivity in JetBrains IDEs.
In CLion 2023.3, AI Assistant generates documentation more accurately and can explain runtime errors to you. The latest update also includes a context-aware AI chat and project-aware AI actions that use extended context to provide more comprehensive results.
Use AI Assistant in CLion as an add-on with a JetBrains AI Service subscription.
In a bid to address long-standing performance and quality issues and unify the user experience across all our C++ tools, we’re launching CLion Nova. It’s a free preview version of CLion with the C++ language engine from ReSharper C++ and JetBrains Rider. It guarantees:
A range of project models are used for C and C++ projects. CLion works out of the box with CMake, compilation databases, Makefiles, and Autotools projects. V2023.3 now brings long-awaited support for Meson and addresses many issues in the Bazel for CLion plugin.
Learn more about the changes
CLion comes with a built-in data flow analyzer, which runs constantly when you are writing your code and helps improve your code’s quality. In v2023.3, we’ve improved the accuracy and performance of the overall analysis and added a memory leak analysis.
Learn more about the new analysis
CLion does its best to help you understand what the code is actually doing and search for bugs in the code base. A new Run to Cursor inlay option speeds up navigation through the code in the debugger, while the Assembly view for files is useful when you’re trying to find a bug or optimize your code’s runtime performance.
Learn more about the new abilities
A device tree is a hierarchical data structure primarily used to describe hardware. It’s widely used in Zephyr and provides the initial configuration for hardware. It’s now much easier to read, navigate, and maintain such files with CLion. Files with .dts and .dtsi extensions are treated by the IDE as device tree files, and so coding assistance options are now available in the device tree.
Learn more about the DTS support
Important quality improvements are implemented in Google’s Bazel plugin for CLion:
strip_include_prefix
argument into account and
thus uses the correct paths when looking for included headers.
local_repository
, or
new_local_repository
are now synchronized and indexed correctly in CLion.
Meson support comes to CLion! You can open a Meson project in CLion and build, run, and debug it. It works on all platforms and for all local and remote toolchains, including WSL and Docker.
To help you edit the meson.build file, CLion provides you with:
executable(...)
and library(...)
commands are present
in the file.
The CMake preset conditions equals
and notEquals
are now
supported, meaning CLion no longer shows presets that don't match these conditions.
With CLion 2023.3, you don’t need a debugging session to explore the underlying assembly code! The new Show Assembly action uses the compiler settings from the currently selected resolve configuration, compiles the code of the currently viewed C/C++ file to assembly, and opens an editor with a preview showing which source code produces which assembly.
All Assembly views in CLion (with and without the debugging sessions) were enhanced with the ability to switch to x86 assembly (Intel) syntax. To do so, go to Options in the Assembly view window and refresh the view to apply the changes.
CLion 2023.3 introduces a new Run to Cursor inlay option in the new UI that offers a quick way to navigate to a specific line of code while debugging. Once your program is suspended, you can hover over the line of code up to which you would like to execute the program and then click on the Run to Cursor popup to execute your code until it reaches the line where you clicked on the popup.
To help you fine-tune the hardware, CLion supports device tree files. Files with .dts and .dtsi extensions are treated by the IDE as device tree files, and so coding assistance options for these are provided in the device tree. Check the online documentation for details.
To help you read through the existing device tree files, CLion provides:
To write device tree files more effectively, CLion supports:
/<commands>/
, and labels./bits/
option.A new “function summaries” approach in CLion 2023.3 allowed us to distinguish different function contexts for arbitrary nested call chains, resulting in more accurate data flow analysis.
Existing inspections in DFA now also consider fields, and there is a new inspection that warns you if not all of the fields were initialized.
A new memory leak analysis is implemented. So you can now easily catch cases where memory is allocated but not released before it stops being accessible.
CLion detects QML types in a project in order to parse them and provide coding assistance based on them. But library QML types or types from users’ plugins are often located in other places. To solve this issue, we’ve introduced the new Extra QML imports setting in Settings/Preferences | Languages & Frameworks | QML, which allows the IDE to search for QML imports in specified locations and parse types from user code.
When you create a new project via the New Project wizard in CLion, a main.cpp or main.c file is generated for you automatically. In some cases however, you might want to rely on a custom template for these files. Now in the CLion 2023.3, you can edit such templates in Settings/Preferences | Editor | File and Code Templates | Other.
The IDE Features Trainer is a set of interactive tutorials covering the essential IDE functionality. Start it from the Welcome screen or from Help | Learn IDE Features. Learn more in our online documentation.
Training starts with the onboarding tour, which helps you get acquainted with CLion and the main user activities: navigating through the views and panels, opening files in the editor, launching your program, autocompleting symbols, applying quick-fixes, and searching for symbols.
If you prefer a more compact IDE view, there’s a new option to hide the main toolbar in the default viewing mode. Go to View | Appearance and uncheck the Toolbar option to hide it.
To enhance your navigation experience when working with a variety of file types in the editor at the same time, we’ve introduced default color-coded highlighting for editor tabs, mirroring their appearance in the Project tool window.
The Speed search functionality, allowing you to quickly navigate within tool windows and dialogs, is now available via a shortcut. When a tree or list is in focus, you can easily invoke the search from the tool window’s Options menu, by pressing Ctrl+F, or simply by starting to type your query.
If you want to quickly revert CLion’s custom tool window layout to the default one, you can now use Window | Layouts | Default to revert your workspace’s appearance to its default state.
To save time during the test indexing phase, you can manually instruct CLion to look for tests in specific directories. To do this, create a Tests scope, and only the files that are filtered by this scope will be indexed during test indexation.
You can use the Tests scope to filter the Project view and quickly access the test files in your project. Learn more.
In CLion 2023.3, we've significantly extended the support for Dev Containers. You can now easily add extra development tools, runtimes, and libraries using Dev Container Features, simplifying the setup of essential components. We’ve also implemented automatic port forwarding, meaning that any ports the application starts listening to in a Dev Container are seamlessly forwarded. Learn more details here.
CLion 2023.3 introduces a revamped way to review changes. Now, instead of going through each file one by one, you can see all of the modified files from a changeset in a single scrollable frame. This new diff viewer is compatible with GitLab, GitHub, and JetBrains Space reviews.
Expanding the GitLab integration introduced with the CLion 2023.2 release, we’ve added support for GitLab snippets. You can now create public or private snippets directly within the IDE.
CLion 2023.2 reimagines PlatformIO integration, improves support for vcpkg, includes the AI Assistant feature, weaving it naturally into some of the core IDE user workflows, and improves the experience of low-level, remote, and embedded debugging.
CLion 2023.2 includes the AI Assistant feature, weaving it naturally into some of the core IDE user workflows. In C and C++, it explains the selected code, suggests how to better refactor that code fragment, or finds potential problems with it. It also generates commit messages and explains CMake errors.
Low-level debugging is easier with CLion 2023.2, which brings the ability to inspect the registers of the current frame. You can also see register values inlined right in the disassembly view. A major update to the Attach to Process dialog enables attaching to remote and WSL processes.
PlatformIO is an open-source platform that helps embedded developers with their projects. CLion 2023.2 integrates natively with the platform. The IDE works directly with the platformio.ini file, tracking changes in it and updating the project information accordingly.
vcpkg is one of the most widely adopted package managers in C++. When working with vcpkg, there are two approaches – Classic mode and Manifest mode. CLion 2023.2 supports both. You can clearly distinguish them in the CLion UI and switch easily to the Manifest mode using a dedicated button.
The new 2023.2 versions of IntelliJ-based IDEs and .NET tools include a major new feature: AI Assistant. It’s still in the early stages of development, but you can already try our approach of weaving AI assistance into the core IDE user workflows and integrating deep AI features with code understanding. Learn more in our webhelp.
AI Assistant is not currently bundled with stable releases of JetBrains IDEs and can be installed as a separate plugin. For the time being, there is a waiting list for access to the AI Assistant feature.
AI Assistant prefers programming topics and benefits from project-specific context. Iterate in the new dedicated tool window, and when you’re happy with the result, use Insert Snippet at Caret to put the AI-generated code in the editor – or just copy it over manually.
Select a specific code fragment in the editor and invoke an action from the AI Actions... context menu.
AI Assistant can help you:
Let AI Assistant help you describe the changes you made. Clicking the Generate Commit Message with AI Assistant button in the commit message dialog will send the diffs of your changes to the LLM, and it will generate a commit message describing your changes.
When CMake execution fails on your project, click Explain with AI in the CMake tool window to get a better understanding of what’s gone wrong and how to fix it.
The Attach to Process dialog allows users to debug processes launched outside of CLion – locally or remotely – but also benefit from the IDE’s debugger integration.
From v2023.2 you can:
Low-level debugging is easier when you have the ability to inspect the registers of the current frame. CLion now shows register values in the Variables tab of the debugger tool window.
CLion now supports ARM assembly languages, which means you’ll see code highlighting for ARM assemblers in the disassembly view.
When debugging disassembly code, CLion now shows register values inlined right in the disassembly view.
Other debugger improvements:
PlatformIO is an open-source platform that helps embedded developers with their projects. In CLion 2023.2, the intermediate CMake level was removed from the integration with PlatformIO. The IDE now works directly with the platformio.ini file, tracking changes in it and updating the project information accordingly.
Learn how to install the PlatformIO plugin and create a new project or open an existing one with it in our webhelp.
Some pio
commands
can now be invoked directly from the IDE (Tools | PlatformIO) – no need to switch
to the terminal. This includes project reloading, running static code analysis on the
project, invoking the device monitor, and more.
The PlatformIO tool window gives quick access to the most used commands and project actions.
Other improvements:
To make sure CLion can debug with the Segger J-Link GDB Server correctly, it now handles
the SIGTRAP
signal in addition to the usual SIGINT
and
SIGSTOP
.
To help you manage project dependencies and external libraries, CLion integrates with vcpkg, a package manager for C/C++. In v2023.2, the integration got a major update, extending the number of scenarios supported.
When working with vcpkg, there are two approaches – Classic mode and Manifest mode. You can now clearly distinguish them in the CLion UI and switch easily to the Manifest mode using a dedicated button.
To make vcpkg’s Classic mode more convenient, we added a Console tab to the vcpkg tool window to show all commands and output.
CLion 2023.2 improves the new C/C++ file creation dialog in cases when there is no CMake target to add the new file to. The new Add new target... action creates a new target and adds it to the selected CMakeLists.txt file. After adding a target, you can then add new files to it.
CLion 2023.2 adds highlighting and completion for new parameters from CMake 3.25 and for the new block command used to execute a group of commands in a requested scope. In CLion, the new command is now highlighted, formatted, folded, and documented correctly.
CLion 2023.2 comes with CMake 3.26 bundled.
The Parameter Info popup shows signature variants as you type and is now available for CMake commands. It helps you figure out which parameter to enter next, especially with commands that have multiple variants.
If your project contains a Docker file with a Linux-based environment and you want to develop your application in it from a Windows machine, you can set this up in CLion using WSL and Docker.
Terminal emulation in the output console is now enabled or disabled separately for each configuration. It’s disabled by default, and the setting that controls it has been moved from Advanced Settings to the Run Configuration section.
On Windows, it now works for MSVC LLDB-based debugging with both regular and administrative privileges.
For v2023.2, we’ve refined the user experience with the Light theme by introducing the alternate Light with Light Header option, featuring matching light colors for window headers, tooltips, and notification balloons.
To make managing multiple run configurations easier, we’ve implemented the option to pin preferred configurations in the Run widget.
When working on macOS in full screen mode using the new UI, the window controls are now displayed right in the main toolbar – not in the floating bar as before.
For the convenience of Linux users, the native header of the operating system has been removed in the new UI, resulting in a cleaner interface. By default, you will now see the custom IDE header, which offers a range of customization options to tailor your workspace.
CLion introduces colored headers to simplify navigation between several open projects. You can now assign a unique color and icon to each of your projects, making it easier to distinguish between them in your workspace.
We’ve expanded the customization options for the new UI’s main toolbar. You can now use a dropdown menu to quickly choose actions that you want to add to the toolbar. To do so, right-click on any widget, select Add to Main Toolbar, and explore the available options.
CLion 2023.1 brings a solution for package management, gets your debugging experience to a new level, helps with QML coding, and includes a host of improvements for the new UI, which has been overhauled based on the valuable feedback we’ve received from our users.
CLion debugger integration got a major update bringing you powerful debugging abilities that include:
vcpkg is a package manager that’s growing in popularity among C++ developers. CLion now integrates with it, assisting with installing and updating vcpkg and its packages and browsing installed and available packages in the dedicated tool window.
CLion helps with the missing dependencies by suggesting quick-fixes when you:
#include
for the header file from a package that is not yet installed.
To speed up the Find Usages action and make it produce more accurate results in C++ code, a brand-new Clangd indexer was introduced in CLion. Enable it in Settings/Preferences | Advanced Settings | Clangd | Use Clangd-based indexer.
Note that the indexer is still in its early stage of development and is considered experimental. Check out the online help for the list of known issues and limitations.
The new UI has less visual clutter and shows the starting points for powerful features more concisely. In v2023.1, we’ve fine-tuned the user experience of the new UI by redesigning the Run widget, adding an option to show hidden tabs and an option to split tool windows vertically, bringing a new Compact Mode for smaller screens, and other changes.
CLion debugger allows you to step into and debug the disassembled code in a dedicated view. Now even when the source code is available.
In the context menu in the frames view, there is now a new action that opens a regular disassembly view for the selected frame. The view opens side-by-side with the source code and highlights the execution line in both.
Read about known issues and limitations.
CLion provides a way to attach the debugger to local processes started outside the IDE. The updated Attach to Process... action’s dialog now makes finding processes and attaching to them even easier and faster.
Display all available processes as a list or a tree in a new table view, check out the name of the user who launched the process, the debuggers available for this process, and the command used to launch the process, and select a debugger for toolchains that support multiple debuggers. Find out more.
When debugging a multithreaded application, step through the selected thread with all other threads suspended. To achieve that, use the Freeze/Unfreeze actions in the context menu in the thread view of the debugger or in the Run | Debugging Actions menu.
Memory View provided by CLion got a massive update, with many issues fixed and the overall user experience enhanced.
CLion now highlights all changed bytes in the memory view during debugging. Also, when scrolling through the memory view, CLion now automatically loads the data.
The number of columns in the Memory View (i.e., the number of bytes per line) is configurable now. Click on the settings icon in the view to change it.
CLion 2023.1 adds an action to help you create a new C++ Module Interface Unit in your project.
In the dialog that opens, enter the module name and type (extension), and specify whether you want CLion to add the newly created module to the existing CMake target. CLion will create a new module file using the file template from Settings/Preferences | Editor | File and Code Templates.
The Change Signature and Extract Function refactorings now support making
a function const
, constexpr
, or noexcept
.
The Extract Constant refactoring now suggests declaring a new constant with
the constexpr
and auto specifiers.
CLion 2023.1 comes with an updated Clang-Tidy checks options dialog:
If you are using Qt Modeling Language (QML) in your code, you will now benefit from the QML syntax support in CLion. This includes:
QML syntax support in CLion works for both Qt5 and Qt6. CLion uses qmlformat to format QML code by default.
Qt and QML paths, qmlformat as a formatting tool, and QML language server can be configured in Settings/Preferences | Languages & Frameworks | QML.
The Call Tree tab in the profiling results now allows you to collapse any frames you’re not interested in. For example, you can hide library classes or classes from specific frameworks to help yourself focus on the application code.
You can now filter files in the Coverage view to focus on recently updated files when testing. By default, you’ll see a list of files with uncommitted changes.
CLion now emulates the terminal in the output console. This behavior is enabled by default in Settings/Preferences | Advanced Settings | Run/Debug | Emulate terminal in the output console and helps you work with text-based user interfaces (TUI), for example, curses/ncurses applications.
CLion 2023.1 supports CMake presets up to version 5 and bundles CMake v3.25.
New color settings have been added for CMake – one for scripts’ keywords and one for CMake arguments’ keywords.
The CMake reload notification is now floating. It takes less editor space while still being noticeable.
Visit this page to learn more about the new UI.
To improve the user experience with CLion’s new UI on smaller screens, we’ve introduced Compact Mode, which provides a more consolidated look and feel of the IDE thanks to scaled-down spacings and elements.
We’ve refined the IDE’s look and feel when the new UI is enabled. The top toolbar is no longer visible in Zen and Distraction Free modes.
CLion 2023.1 features a new Dark theme activated by default when the user enables the new UI.
The Run widget in the main window header has been redesigned so that its appearance is unobtrusive and easier on the eyes.
Users of the new UI can now see the full list of open editor tabs. It’s accessible via the Show Hidden Tabs selector located at the right-end of the tabs row.
The new UI now offers an option to vertically split the tool window area and conveniently arrange these windows, just like in the old UI.
You can now zoom into and out of CLion entirely, increasing or decreasing the size of all UI elements simultaneously. Select View | Appearance and adjust the IDE’s scaling. You can also assign custom shortcuts for calling these actions in Settings/Preferences | Keymap | Main Menu | View | Appearance.
With CLion 2023.1, you can save and manage several tool window layouts and switch between them when needed. With the new Window | Layouts menu, you can save the current layout as a new one, update the already saved layout, or activate a previously saved layout.
A new layout option allows you to unify the width of the side tool windows or retain the ability to freely adjust their sizes as you customize your layout. The new Remember size for each tool window checkbox is available in Settings/Preferences | Appearance | Appearance & Behavior | Tool Windows.
You can now predefine the behavior of Actions on Save for new projects. For this, go to File | New Projects Setup | Preferences For New Projects | Tools | Actions on Save and select which actions you want to be triggered when saving changes in your future projects.
Where would you like to paste a line that was copied or cut without selection? In CLion, there is now a special setting that allows you to control the placement of the pasted content. In Settings/Preferences | Advanced Settings, find the Editor section and select the desired behavior for the Paste action from the drop-down list.
CLion 2023.1 features a new Selection checkbox in Settings/Preferences | Editor | General | Appearance | Show Whitespaces that allows you to configure this setting so that the IDE shows whitespaces as small dots only when you select code.
To make tracking changes to files more convenient, we’ve added color hints to the Structure tool window.
The names of modified objects will now become blue, and the names of the newly added objects will appear in the tool window highlighted in green.
CLion 2023.1 provides auto-completion in the Create New Branch popup. Once you start typing a name for your new branch, the IDE will suggest relevant prefixes based on the names of existing local branches.
In the Branches popup, branches are now grouped and stored in expandable lists for easier navigation.
We’ve fine-tuned the process of reviewing code inside the IDE by reworking the Pull Request tool window. It now features a dedicated tab for each pull request you open. The tab instantly displays the list of changed files but now provides less information than before, allowing you to better focus on the current task. There is also a dedicated button to easily execute the action that’s considered the most important given the pull request’s current state.
A new intention action allows you to correct the formatting of tables in Markdown files. You can access the quick-fix via the Context actions shortcut (Alt+Enter) or by pressing the yellow bulb icon and selecting Reformat table from the list that appears.
The Fill Paragraph editor action is now supported for Markdown files, allowing you to break long texts into several lines of even length. To do this, set the caret inside the paragraph you want to edit and call the action from the Edit menu or search for the Fill Paragraph command using Find Action.
As a part of continuous improving macro support, the IntelliJ Rust plugin shows inlay type hints in function-like and attribute macro calls now. Besides inlay hints, the plugin started highlighting errors inside attribute macro calls.
The new version of the plugin provides a way to exclude some specific items from
auto-import. The most annoying cases, like methods from Borrow
and
BorrowMut
traits from stdlib
, are already excluded by
this mechanism by default.
Starting from this release, the plugin shows content behind any struct reference and pointer during debugging, as well as the content of raw slice pointers.