An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that allows programmers to create, edit, compile and debug programs for a specific programming language. It contains features like a source code editor, build automation tools and a debugger. Common IDEs provide components like a compiler that converts source code to machine code, a linker to combine object files into an executable, an interpreter to directly execute high-level code, and a debugger to test programs. The IDE aims to improve developer productivity by providing these tools together in one interface rather than requiring separate setup of individual components.