IBM Project4i – AI-Powered ALM & DevOps Layer built on top of Code for IBM i

[dibari62]

IBM Project4i – AI-Powered ALM & DevOps Layer built on top of Code for IBM i

Hi team and community,

First of all, a massive thank you to the maintainers and contributors of this repository. Code for i i has completely revolutionized the way we approach development on this platform, making the modern VS Code ecosystem accessible to IBM i developers.

Inspired by your incredible work, I have been developing a complementary extension called IBM Project4i (G-DiBari.ibmi-project4i), which acts as a logical lifecycle and DevOps layer directly on top of Code for IBM i.

Our goal is to bring advanced, modern ALM practices to the platform without forcing developers to leave their favorite editor. We recently hit a milestone of 156 active installations, and we are preparing to open-source the repository (MIT license) very soon!

What Project4i adds on top of Code for IBM i:
Logical Project Layer: Group sources from any library into a unified project structure without altering physical library layouts.

Autonomous AI Suite: Uses VS Code Language Model APIs for automatic technical/functional documentation and a Change-Impact Analysis tool that scans perimeters and generates interactive Mermaid.js flowcharts to visualize code blast radius.

Multi-Tier & Data-Safe Promotion: Model custom pipelines (DEV → INT → QA → PROD) with built-in data-safe recompiles (CRTPF to CHGPF) to protect live production data.

Deployment Packages: Bundle members into named releases, deploying them in exact build-dependency order with automatic rollbacks and maker-checker approval gates.

Team Governance & Locking: Pessimistic member locking, cross-project conflict detection, and shared project metadata stored securely on the IFS for team collaboration.

We are currently working on expanding this into a full Multiserver architecture to allow cross-LPAR/cross-server package routing and distributed deployments.

Check it out in VS Code Marketplace

Since this project lives and breathes thanks to the foundational APIs provided by Code for IBM i, I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or any suggestions from this amazing community.

Thank you again for making all of this possible!

Best regards,
Giuseppe

[thomprl]

I would really like to see a video or demo of this in action. Hard to visualize. Sounds awesome but I'm a visual learner.