Feature: Expose NetBeans IDE intelligence to Claude Code via MCP

[rrangelo]

Problem

The current plugin implementation essentially wraps filesystem operations
(read, write, list files) over WebSocket. This provides no meaningful
advantage over running claude directly inside the project folder, since
Claude Code CLI already has full filesystem access natively.

The real value of an IDE plugin integration would be exposing what the IDE
actually knows about the project, information that is not available from
raw file reading alone.

Proposed Solution

Expose NetBeans' internal intelligence through MCP tools, specifically:

Compilation & Diagnostics

• Real-time compilation errors and warnings as MCP tools
• Claude Code could react to errors without waiting for a build

Language Server / Java Intelligence

• Type hierarchies and class relationships
• Find usages across the full project
• Symbol resolution with full classpath awareness
• Navigation: implementations, overrides, references

Refactoring Engine

• Trigger NetBeans' safe refactoring operations (rename, extract method,
  move class) through Claude Code instead of raw file editing
• This would make refactors semantically safe rather than text-based

Classpath & Dependency Resolution

• Expose how NetBeans resolves the classpath
• Module dependencies as NetBeans understands them, not just pom.xml content

Why This Matters

Currently Claude Code edits files as plain text. With this integration,
Claude Code would operate with the same semantic understanding of the
project that NetBeans has. The difference between editing a file and
performing an IDE-aware refactoring is significant in terms of correctness
and safety, especially in large Java codebase.

Current Behavior

Plugin provides: read_file, write_file, list_files, get_open_projects,
get_project_files, get_open_documents, get_document_content

All of these are filesystem-level operations already available to Claude
Code CLI natively.

Expected Behavior

Plugin additionally provides IDE-level tools that Claude Code cannot
replicate on its own, making the plugin genuinely indispensable for
Java development in NetBeans.

[emilianbold]

I know this angle, but it's not what Claude Code does with, say, VSCode.

Claude Code does get hints from the editor, including NetBeans, which means it does see the file status, including errors (via NetBeans parsing / compilation). You also get to review and confirm changes in the IDE.

I agree what Claude Code does is crude versus using IDE tooling and semantical understanding of the project.

A NetBeans MCP is a somewhat orthogonal project.