If you have been keeping an eye on the latest from Big Blue, you might have heard whispers about Project Bob. It is IBM's new AI-powered tool aimed at shaking up how we develop and modernize software, with a strong nod to us in the IBM i world. Think of it as your smart sidekick that understands your code, helps refactor legacy stuff, and speeds up the whole process without you having to sweat the small details. In this quick lesson, we will break down what Project Bob is, its key features, and why it matters for IBM i programmers working with RPG, CL, and the like. Let us dive in and see how this could fit into your toolkit.
At its core, Project Bob is an AI-first integrated development environment or IDE that acts as a pair programmer. It is designed to help teams build new apps, maintain existing ones, and especially modernize legacy systems. Announced back in October 2025 at TechXchange, it is still in preview for select customers, but IBM is positioning it as a game-changer for enterprise dev. Unlike basic code assistants, Bob goes deeper by understanding your intent, your entire codebase, and even your organization's security standards. It uses a mix of foundation models like IBM's Granite, Anthropic's Claude, Meta's Llama, and Mistral to deliver smart, context-aware help.
For us IBM i developers, this is where it gets exciting. Project Bob supports key languages and artifacts on the platform, including RPG, CL, DDS, and SQL. It can handle code understanding, explanation, generation, refactoring, transformation, and even creating test cases. If you are dealing with old RPG code that needs a refresh, Bob can read your codebase, suggest modern frameworks, refactor at scale, or help re-platform with full context. It builds on lessons from the now-canceled Watson Code Assistant for IBM i, but takes it further. Even non-experts can use it to create, compile, and run RPG programs, which is handy for onboarding new team members or bridging skills gaps.
Let us talk features. Bob operates in modes like Architect Mode for scoping and designing complex systems, and Code Mode for quick iterations on implementation. It has agentic workflows that break down big tasks into steps, coordinating across code, tests, docs, and pipelines. Security is baked in with inline scanning using tools like Semgrep, plus checks for standards like FedRAMP, HIPAA, and PCI. There is also BobShell, a CLI tool for literate programming that creates repeatable workflows, perfect for CI/CD or automated upgrades on your IBM i box.
How does it work in practice? You plug it into your existing IDE or simply use the Bob IDE (which is essentially VS-Code with some BOB Bells and Whistles) - it analyzes your IBM-i source code repo, enforces best practices, and suggests fixes or new code. For IBM i modernization projects, it has shown productivity boosts up to 45 percent in IBM's internal tests with thousands of developers. Just keep in mind, as with any AI tool, there have been early reports of vulnerabilities, like being tricked into running malware, so always verify outputs in a secure setup.
In summary, Project Bob is IBM's push into AI-driven dev that directly benefits IBM i shops by making legacy code easier to handle and modernize. If you are tired of manual refactors or explaining DDS to juniors, this could be worth checking out once it hits general availability. Request a preview if you qualify and start experimenting.