Aider Configuration for Always-On AI Assistant

A production-ready Aider configuration file (`.aider.conf.yml`) optimized for an always-on AI assistant workflow using Claude Sonnet, with sensible defaults for enterprise development.

What This Skill Does

This configuration sets up Aider with:

Instructions

1. **Locate or create your Aider configuration file:**

- Place `.aider.conf.yml` in your home directory for global settings, OR

- Place `.aider.conf.yml` at the root of your git repository for project-specific settings

2. **Copy the configuration below into `.aider.conf.yml`:**

```yaml

Use claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022 model for the main chat

sonnet: true

Disable auto-commits for manual control

auto-commits: false

Disable shell command suggestions for security

suggest-shell-commands: false

Disable URL detection for cleaner workflow

detect-urls: false

Use VS Code as the default editor

editor: code

Voice language (ISO 639-1 code)

voice-language: en

```

3. **Customize the configuration (optional):**

- Add API keys directly in the config (OpenAI/Anthropic only) or use `.env` file

- Adjust model selection (opus, haiku, 4o, mini, deepseek, etc.)

- Configure repo map tokens (`map-tokens: 1024` default)

- Set color schemes for terminal output

- Configure linting and testing commands

- Enable voice settings if using speech-to-text

4. **Key configuration options you may want to adjust:**

**Model Selection:**

```yaml

# Switch to different models

opus: true # Claude Opus

haiku: true # Claude Haiku

4o: true # GPT-4o

mini: true # GPT-4o Mini

deepseek: true # DeepSeek Coder

```

**Git Behavior:**

```yaml

auto-commits: true # Enable automatic commits

dirty-commits: false # Prevent commits when repo is dirty

show-diffs: true # Show diffs when committing

```

**Linting & Testing:**

```yaml

auto-lint: true # Lint after every change

auto-test: true # Run tests after every change

test-cmd: pytest # Specify test command

lint-cmd:

- "python: flake8 --select=E,W,F"

- "javascript: eslint"

```

**Output Customization:**

```yaml

dark-mode: true # Dark terminal colors

code-theme: monokai # Syntax highlighting theme

```

5. **Verify your configuration:**

```bash

aider --help

```

Aider will automatically load settings from `.aider.conf.yml`

6. **Launch Aider:**

```bash

aider

```

Important Notes

Examples

Minimal Configuration (Claude Sonnet + Manual Control)

```yaml

sonnet: true

auto-commits: false

```

Full Development Setup (with linting and testing)

```yaml

sonnet: true

auto-commits: false

auto-lint: true

auto-test: true

test-cmd: pytest tests/

lint-cmd:

- "python: black . && flake8"

editor: code

dark-mode: true

```

DeepSeek V3 Configuration (as referenced in source)

```yaml

deepseek: true

auto-commits: false

suggest-shell-commands: false

editor: code

```

Constraints