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.
What IBM Bob does
IBM Bob is an AI coding agent built for IBM i. It is a fork of Visual Studio Code, tuned for RPG, CL, DDS and SQL. It took over from IBM's earlier watsonx Code Assistant for i preview.
IBM Bob timeline
- Oct 2025Introduced as Project Bob at TechXchange.
- Mar 24, 2026General availability, version 1.0.0.
- Jun 24, 2026Bob 2.0 and the Bob Premium Package for i ship the same day.
- Aug 2026Build with Bob lets you launch it from watsonx Orchestrate, as a preview.
What Bob 2.0 added
- A 270,000-token context window, so it can hold far more of your code in view at once
- Parallel and native tool calling
- Subagents that split up a job
- Rollback that does not depend on Git
- Repeatable workflows
- Three modes: agent, plan and ask
What the Premium Package adds for IBM i
- About 40 skills and workflows
- About 30 tools, including QSYS and IFS read and write, CL and SQL execution, 5250 session launch and library list management
- A RAG workflow
- A Developer Mode for RPG, COBOL, DDS, SQL and CL
- A Db2 for i Database Mode
What IBM Bob costs
Reported IBM Bob pricing
| Plan | Reported price |
|---|---|
| Bob Premium Package for i add-on | $20 to $40 a month |
| Ultra, Premium Package included | $240 a month |
Reported pricing, not an IBM price list.
Related Terms
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.
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.
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.
watsonx Code Assistant for i
IBM's November 2025 preview announcement of an AI code assistant purpose-built for RPG on IBM i. The preview track was superseded by IBM Bob, which reached general availability in March 2026.
RPG
Report Program Generator, the primary business application programming language on IBM i and its AS/400 predecessors, still running the majority of production logic in most IBM i shops.
Free-Format RPG
A modern RPG coding style that drops the rigid column-based syntax of traditional fixed-format RPG in favor of freer, more readable statement syntax.
IBM i
IBM's operating system for Power servers running traditional AS/400-lineage business applications, with Db2 for i built directly into the OS.