Make CoPilot an Interactive Programmer MCP Server

What is Make CoPilot an Interactive Programmer?

Make CoPilot an Interactive Programmer (Backseat Driver) is a VS Code extension that gives AI agents like GitHub Copilot and Cursor direct access to Calva’s Clojure tools. It enables the AI to evaluate code in the REPL, perform structural editing, look up symbols, and load files—turning Copilot into an interactive Clojure programmer.

How to use Make CoPilot an Interactive Programmer?

Install the Prerequisites: VS Code, the Calva extension, and the Backseat Driver extension. Then connect Calva to your Clojure/ClojureScript project. With GitHub Copilot or an MCP-compliant assistant active, ask the AI to use the REPL to investigate or implement code. For MCP-based harnesses, additional per-project configuration is required (see MCP-CONFIGURATION.md).

Key features of Make CoPilot an Interactive Programmer

• Evaluate code via the Clojure REPL through Calva
• Create Clojure files with automatic bracket balancing
• Append code to files with bracket balancing
• Structural editing (insert/replace top-level forms) with formatting, balancing, and linting
• Bracket balancer powered by Parinfer
• Load and evaluate entire Clojure files through the REPL
• Symbol info lookup with doc strings and argument info
• clojuredocs.org lookup for docs, examples, and see also

Use cases of Make CoPilot an Interactive Programmer

• AI-assisted interactive development in Clojure/ClojureScript projects
• Parallel subagents investigating different aspects of an implementation
• Rapid prototyping with REPL-driven feedback directly from Copilot
• Code refactoring with structural editing tools invoked by the AI