I’ve spent decades wrangling RPG code on AS400, iSERIES and IBM i systems. You know the drill: endless source files, green screens, and that nagging pull to modernize without breaking everything. Very repetetive and prone to broken code because of a finger slip, a mistyped line of code or a fat-finger moment on the keyboard. Frustrating.

Interestingly, IBM recently unveiled Project Bob at TechXchange. This AI tool steps in as your coding partner. It plugs right into your IDE (in my case VS-Code). You tell it what you need. It handles the heavy lifting from write to deploy.

It’s an AI code companion, much like the GITHUB AI, or MS COPILOT, but BOB professes to be focused on IBM languages.

So, this certainly is exciting and get my RPG juices flowing.

According to IBM:

Chat in your Editor

Bob lives inside the IDE, making it easy to ask, design, debug, and refactor without breaking flow. It understands the repo and context, so every answer feels like it comes from a teammate.

Code Review Mode

Bob’s agentic review mode goes beyond linting. It understands developer intent, flags issues early, and explains its reasoning. Reviews shift from reactive bottlenecks to proactive, educational feedback.

Vulnerability & secrets detection

Security isn’t an afterthought. With AI-powered secrets detection built-in, Bob surfaces vulnerabilities and credential leaks as you code, before they reach a pull request.

Apparently, IBM tested it on 6,000 devs. They hit 45% productivity jumps.

I see it easing my IBM i migrations. No more manual hunts for vulnerabilities in old apps. More focused coding.

It’s early access now. Sign the waitlist at https://www.ibm.com/products/bob. Tell them your pain points. They prioritize based on that. I’ll keep you posted as I test more RPG scenarios.

What do you think? Ready to let Bob drive your next project?