Complete guide to Pieces

Getting started

Download Pieces for Developers (pieces.app) and install it on your machine along with the extension for your IDE or browser. Once active, it automatically captures code snippets, documents, and conversations from the apps you use in the background, building a memory of your workflow; open the integrated Copilot to ask about any saved snippet, file, or code folder, without leaving the context where you're working.

Use cases

Advanced setup

1. Automatic background capture
   Pieces silently saves code, documents, and conversations from all open apps, building context without manual action from the user.
2. RAG over local context
   The Copilot uses Retrieval Augmented Generation over locally saved folders, files, and snippets to give more precise, contextual answers.
3. Local processing
   Runs on the user's own machine, enabling fast, secure, and isolated (air-gapped) data handling when that level of privacy is needed.

Tips

• Let automatic capture run in the background for a few weeks before judging its usefulness — its value grows with accumulated history.
• Use the Copilot to ask about work done in a tool other than the current IDE — that's its main difference from copilots focused only on the open project.
• Enable offline mode if you work with sensitive code you don't want passing through external servers.
• Manually organize only the most important snippets; for the rest, trust the automatic categorization instead of duplicating effort.

FAQ