Build with Bob
An option added to watsonx Orchestrate's Create an agent dialog in the August 2026 release, listed by IBM as a preview, that launches IBM Bob into a workspace wired to your Orchestrate tenant to generate agents, tools and workflows from natural language.
Build with Bob is the first official bridge between IBM Bob, IBM's AI coding agent for IBM i, and the watsonx platform. It appears in the Create an agent dialog in watsonx Orchestrate and opens a Bob development workspace already connected to your Orchestrate environment. From there you describe an agent in plain language and Bob writes the agent definition, the tools it calls and the workflow, and it can refine agents that already exist rather than only producing first drafts. Behind the scenes it configures two MCP servers, one that searches the Orchestrate Agent Development Kit documentation and one that drives the Orchestrate command line, which is the same wiring IBM developer advocates had been assembling by hand since January 2026. IBM's release notes list Build with Bob as a preview on IBM Cloud and AWS deployments rather than generally available, while the Orchestrate extension on the Bob side is GA. It is important to be clear about what it does not do: it connects two build tools to each other, not an agent to IBM i. Nothing in the release notes or announcement mentions IBM i, Db2 for i or RPG, and reaching IBM i data still requires a tool such as the IBM i MCP Server.
Related Terms
IBM Bob (Project Bob)
IBM's generally available AI coding agent for IBM i, built as a fork of Visual Studio Code and tuned for RPG, CL, DDS, and SQL. Reached GA on March 24, 2026; Bob 2.0 and the IBM i-specific Bob Premium Package for i shipped June 24, 2026.
watsonx Orchestrate
IBM's AI agent and automation platform for orchestrating multi-step business workflows across enterprise applications. Since August 2026 it can launch IBM Bob from its Create an agent dialog through a Build with Bob preview, but it still ships no IBM i or Db2 for i connector.
IBM i MCP Server
An open-source, IBM-published server implementing the Model Context Protocol (MCP), letting AI agents and LLMs query Db2 for i data and take defined actions on IBM i using natural language. In beta since October 2025.
Bob Premium Package for i
The IBM i-specific add-on to IBM Bob, generally available June 24, 2026. It gives Bob about 40 skills and workflows and about 30 tools that work directly against QSYS, the IFS, CL, SQL and Db2 for i on a live system.
watsonx
IBM's platform for AI and data, spanning watsonx.ai (foundation models and generative AI), watsonx.data (data store), and watsonx.governance (AI governance), with watsonx Assistant and watsonx Orchestrate built on top.