Alibaba Cloud Developer Toolkit JetBrains plugin - OpenAPI Explorer

This topic describes how to install and use the Alibaba Cloud Developer Toolkit plugin in a JetBrains integrated development environment (IDE).

Install the plugin

Prerequisites

A JetBrains IDE is installed, such as IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, or GoLand.
Version 2022.2 or later is required.

This topic uses IntelliJ IDEA on Windows as an example to describe two methods for installing the plugin.

Method 1: Download and install from the plugin marketplace

In the IntelliJ IDEA menu bar, choose > Plugins.... Alternatively, choose File > > Plugins.
On the Plugins page, click the Marketplace tab.
Search for Alibaba Cloud Developer Toolkit and click Install.
Click Apply, and then click OK.

Method 2: Download the installation package from a browser

Open the official JetBrains Marketplace in a browser and download the plugin package to your computer.
In the IntelliJ IDEA menu bar, choose > Plugins.... Alternatively, choose File > > Plugins.
On the Plugins page, choose > Install Plugin from Disk..., select the downloaded package, and complete the installation. You do not need to decompress the package.

Verification result

After the installation is complete, a shortcut to the Toolkit plugin appears in the left navigation pane of IntelliJ IDEA. This indicates that the plugin was installed successfully.

Configure profiles

You must configure identity credentials to call API operations. The plugin currently supports only AccessKey credentials. You can configure credentials using one of the following two methods.

Note

If you do not use the Alibaba Cloud command-line interface (CLI), use Method 1 to configure your identity and credentials.
If you use the Alibaba Cloud CLI, you can use Method 1 or Method 2 to configure your identity and credentials.

Method 1

In the upper-left corner, click New Profile or the icon.
Enter the configuration information, including the Profile Name, RegionId, and the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key. You can use an existing AccessKey or create a new one. For more information, see View the AccessKey pair of a RAM user. Note: To reduce the risk of your AccessKey being leaked, store your AccessKey secret in a secure location. The secret is displayed only once when you create it and cannot be retrieved later.
Important
An Alibaba Cloud account has full permissions on all resources. If the AccessKey of an Alibaba Cloud account is leaked, all resources within the account face high security risks. We strongly recommend that you do not use the AccessKey of an Alibaba Cloud account.
Click Add Configuration.
A Profile added successfully message appears in a dialog box in the lower-right corner. You can then click the drop-down list in the left pane to view the user that you configured. This confirms that the profile was added successfully.
You can click a profile name to switch identities.

Method 2

If you have installed and used the Alibaba Cloud CLI, the plugin automatically reuses its configuration. For more information about how to configure identity and credentials using the CLI, see Configure credentials for Alibaba Cloud CLI.
You can click the drop-down list in the left pane or the status bar in the lower-right corner to switch between or view existing users and credentials.
In the drop-down list in the left pane, you can click a profile name to switch identities.

Features

Alibaba Cloud Developer Toolkit lets you quickly find the APIs of Alibaba Cloud products in JetBrains IDEs. It also provides features such as API debugging, software development kit (SDK) generation, and SDK sample code insertion. These features help you access Alibaba Cloud services more efficiently from within the IDE.

Search for cloud products and API operations

The left navigation pane of the plugin displays a tree view of cloud products. You can search for a product by its name in English or Chinese to quickly find it. You can also click a cloud product name to open its API list and search for a specific API.

View API reference

You can click an API to open a new window that displays its API reference. The reference includes information such as the API description, request parameters, response parameters, and error codes.

Debug API operations

After your identity is verified, you can debug API operations in the plugin.
You can complete the parameter form based on the API reference to debug an API. The debugging result is displayed in the IDE. You can also click Debug to navigate to the API operation in the OpenAPI console for debugging.

View and insert SDK sample code

View sample code

The plugin can generate SDK sample code.

After you enter the parameters, the corresponding sample code is generated automatically. You can then open the sample code in the IDE to edit it.
Dependencies can be automatically imported. Currently, only Maven dependencies are supported for auto import.
You can click the installation method and source code buttons to learn how to install dependencies and view the source code.

Insert code snippets

The plugin currently supports one-click insertion of Java and asynchronous Java SDK sample code snippets. It also supports automatically importing the corresponding Maven dependencies into the pom.xml file. To enable or disable this feature, you can right-click and choose Alibaba Cloud Developer Toolkit > Disable/Enable Alibaba Cloud SDK auto-completion, or use the keyboard shortcut ctrl+cmd+p.