That’s an excellent question, and it highlights a common point of confusion with the “Prototype with AI” feature in Firebase Studio. Based on the documentation and community discussions, here’s what you need to know.
The “Prototype with AI” feature, which uses the App Prototyping Agent, is designed to kickstart new projects from a natural language prompt. It’s a key feature for generating a new application from scratch.
However, once a project has been created and the initial AI prototyping is complete, the dedicated “Prototype with AI” option on the main dashboard may not appear again when you re-import the project. The functionality is tightly integrated with the initial project creation flow.
Here are the answers to your questions:
How can I re-enable the “Prototype with AI” feature for this project in Firebase Studio?
You can’t “re-enable” the initial AI prototyping feature on a project that has already been created and imported. The “Prototype with AI” button is for starting a new project, not for adding the functionality to an existing one.
However, this doesn’t mean you’ve lost all AI capabilities. The good news is that you can still use the power of AI to modify and enhance your existing project.
Within the Firebase Studio IDE (the Code view), there should be a Gemini chat panel. This chat panel, sometimes referred to as the “Gemini Code Assist agent,” is where you can interact with the AI to make changes to your codebase. Gemini is context-aware and can understand your project’s structure, allowing you to ask it to:
* Add new features.
* Change the UI or layout.
* Refactor code.
* Debug issues.
* Write tests.
Since your project already contains the .idx folder, the AI has a pre-existing understanding of your codebase, which should make these interactions even more effective.
Is there any command or terminal-based method to activate or restore it?
No, there is no command or terminal-based method to “restore” the initial AI prototyping button for a project. The .idx folder is a crucial part of the AI’s internal representation of your project, but it doesn’t serve as a toggle to reactivate the “Prototype with AI” interface. The terminal in Firebase Studio is a full VM, so you can run most standard commands, but there isn’t a specific command for this purpose.
In summary, while you won’t see the “Prototype with AI” button for your existing project, you can and should use the integrated Gemini chat panel within the IDE to continue using AI assistance.