Troubleshooting and FAQ

Access to AI is not allowed for this account

Indexing or search fails with code 403 and this message (or Workspace ID is required). The account or license you logged in with has no supported AI subscription.

• Make sure you are logged in with the JetBrains Account that holds the license. To switch accounts, licenses, or workspaces, run jbcontext logout, then jbcontext login.

• Check the license against Which license do I need?.

Your administrator has disabled indexing for this repository

jbcontext index stops with this error. An administrator has blocked on-demand indexing for your organization in JetBrains Console. See Manage indexing settings.

Repository is too large to be indexed

jbcontext index stops with this message. On a developer machine, repository size is limited.

• Exclude generated code, dependencies, and assets with a .jbcontextignore file. See Exclude files from indexing.

• Index the repository in CI with an organization service account, which lifts the limit. See Index repositories in CI.

No index found for the repository

jbcontext search, or the search check of jbcontext doctor, fails with No index found for repository '<repoId>'. Possible causes:

• The repository hasn't been indexed yet. Run jbcontext index in the repository root.

• Indexing didn't complete. See Repository is too large to be indexed.

If jbcontext status lists snapshots and search still fails, report the issue.

Search returns results for the wrong branch

Results point to lines that don't match your checkout. Search uses the latest snapshot for the current branch, then the latest snapshot for the default branch, and only then the most recent snapshot on any branch. Run jbcontext index on your branch, or pin the search with --branch or --revision; see jbcontext search.

The agent does not use Air Context

jbcontext doctor passes, but the agent keeps exploring the code with its own file search tools. Usually the agent does call Air Context, the call fails, and the agent falls back to file search without telling you.

To see the real error, run jbcontext stats --errors, or run jbcontext search yourself from the folder the agent works in. Then follow the matching entry:

• The repository hasn't been indexed yet. Agents only refresh an existing index, so run jbcontext index in the repository root once. See No index found for the repository.

• OpenAI Codex asks for approval before running the call, or blocks it. The execution-policy rules that jbcontext setup-agent --agent codex --rules (or --auto) installs let the read-only query commands run without prompts. index, login, and setup-agent are deliberately left out, so OpenAI Codex asks for approval each time; approving is enough, and you don't need to set network_access. If OpenAI Codex was set up without --rules or --auto, run jbcontext setup-agent --agent codex --rules. If you removed the Managed by line from the rules file, setup-agent treats the file as yours and doesn't update it.

• Certificate or connection errors: Behind a corporate proxy or TLS inspection.

If there is no error, the agent may be following its instructions: the installed skill tells it to skip semantic search when it already knows the file, class, or symbol to look at.

Behind a corporate proxy or TLS inspection

If every network call fails with unable to find valid certification path to requested target, antivirus or a corporate gateway is replacing TLS certificates. Update to Air Context CLI 0.9.12 or later, which trusts the certificate authorities installed in your operating system.

Authentication behind a corporate HTTP proxy isn't supported yet.

Does Air Context upload my source code?

During indexing, the CLI sends chunks of the committed code at the indexed revision to the Air Context server so that it can compute embeddings. Uncommitted changes aren't included. The embeddings, file paths, and offsets are stored on the server or, for small repositories of users outside an organization, on your machine. The raw source isn't stored. Search returns file paths and offsets, and the agent or CLI then reads the matching code from your own checkout. For details, see Security and data privacy.

Which license do I need?

You need a JetBrains AI subscription (AI Free, AI Pro, AI Ultimate, or AI Enterprise). Paid and complimentary IDE licenses include AI Free, except IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition and PyCharm Community Edition.

If your organization manages AI centrally through Air Governance, an administrator must first enable AI for the organization and grant AI access before you can use Air Context.

Can I use Air Context offline?

No. Even when the index is stored on your machine, the embeddings for your code and for each search query are computed on the Air Context server, so an internet connection is required to index and search.