Continue.dev + Gonka AI - AI for VS Code/JetBrains

Continue.dev - the most popular open-source AI extension for VS Code and JetBrains IDEs. Code autocompletion, built-in chat, generation by comments, code explanation - functionality at the level of GitHub Copilot, but free and customizable.

Continue.dev supports dozens of LLM providers, including OpenAI-compatible APIs. This means that JoinGonka Gateway connects in one minute - by editing one JSON file.

Result: GitHub Copilot functionality ($19-39/month) for $0.30/month via Gonka.

Step 1: Install Continue.dev

Install the extension from the marketplace:

VS Code: Extensions → Search "Continue" → Install.
JetBrains (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, GoLand): Settings → Plugins → Marketplace → "Continue" → Install.

After installation, the Continue icon will appear in the sidebar. If you are using Continue for the first time, the extension will offer to configure the LLM provider on the first launch.

Step 2: Configure Gonka provider

The easiest way is to use the one-command installer. For CLI/file-based tools, it will automatically register the JoinGonka provider (baseUrl, models); for UI-based tools, it will provide the ready-made values for you to paste:

npx @joingonka/setup --tool continue

The installer is universal (if no flag is provided, you will be prompted to select a tool from the list), it will ask for your jg-… key, and will perform a live verification via a gateway request after setup. It does not touch other settings. Below is the manual method if you prefer to set it up yourself.

Setup manually (Plan B)

Continue uses ~/.continue/config.yaml (the old config.json format is deprecated). Open it via the command palette: Ctrl+Shift+P (on macOS — Cmd+Shift+P) → "Continue: Open config.yaml".

Add JoinGonka Gateway as a provider:

# ~/.continue/config.yaml
models:
  - name: Gonka Kimi K2.6
    provider: openai
    model: moonshotai/Kimi-K2.6
    apiBase: https://gate.joingonka.ai/v1
    apiKey: jg-your-key
    roles: [chat, edit, apply]
  - name: Gonka Autocomplete
    provider: openai
    model: MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-M2.7
    apiBase: https://gate.joingonka.ai/v1
    apiKey: jg-your-key
    roles: [autocomplete]

To avoid keeping your key in plain text, Continue supports substitution: apiKey: ${{ secrets.GONKA_API_KEY }} with the variable defined in ~/.continue/.env.

Verification: open any code file and start typing — autocomplete should work. Or open the Continue chat (Ctrl+L) and ask a question.

Important: make sure apiBase contains /v1 at the end of the URL. Without it, requests will return a 404.

Continue.dev vs GitHub Copilot

Let's compare Continue.dev + Gonka with GitHub Copilot — the most popular commercial alternative:

Parameter	Continue.dev + Gonka	GitHub Copilot
Price/month	~$0.30	$19 (Individual) / $39 (Business)
Open-source	Yes (Apache 2.0)	No
IDE	VS Code, JetBrains	VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim
Model	Kimi K2.6 (customizable)	GPT-5.5 (fixed)
Privacy	Via decentralized network	Data on Microsoft servers
Limits	No limits	Limit on completions/day
Model config	Any OpenAI-compatible	GitHub models only
Model context	200K tokens	128K (GPT-5.5)
Max response length	up to 8192 tokens (Gateway, for all network models)	Depends on the model

Continue.dev + Gonka is 60-130 times cheaper, fully open-source, unlimited, and allows model selection. The only advantage of Copilot is deeper GitHub integration (pull request review), but for daily coding, Continue.dev + Gonka covers 95% of needs.

Continue.dev + Gonka = GitHub Copilot functionality for $0.30/month. Open-source extension for VS Code and JetBrains + cheapest AI API in the world. No limits, no subscriptions.

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