diff --git a/ci/README.md b/ci/README.md
index 2e356ddc0f29a..d42aaaa0df757 100644
--- a/ci/README.md
+++ b/ci/README.md
@@ -85,6 +85,15 @@ To force the Envoy build image to be refreshed by Docker you can set `ENVOY_DOCK
 ENVOY_DOCKER_PULL=true ./ci/run_envoy_docker.sh <build_script_args>
 ```
 
+
+# Generating compile commands
+
+The `./ci/do_ci.sh` script provides a CI target that generates compile commands for clangd or other tools.
+
+```bash
+ENVOY_GEN_COMPDB_OPTIONS="--vscode --exclude_contrib" ./ci/do_ci.sh refresh_compdb
+```
+
 ## On Linux
 
 An example basic invocation to build a developer version of the Envoy static binary (using the Bazel `fastbuild` type) is:
diff --git a/ci/do_ci.sh b/ci/do_ci.sh
index cc042c2279b15..2341bd0f9b40c 100755
--- a/ci/do_ci.sh
+++ b/ci/do_ci.sh
@@ -1041,7 +1041,18 @@ case $CI_TARGET in
         ;;
 
     refresh_compdb)
-        "${CURRENT_SCRIPT_DIR}/../tools/vscode/refresh_compdb.sh"
+        if [[ -z "${SKIP_PROTO_FORMAT}" ]]; then
+            "${CURRENT_SCRIPT_DIR}/../tools/proto_format/proto_format.sh" fix
+        fi
+
+        read -ra ENVOY_GEN_COMPDB_OPTIONS <<< "${ENVOY_GEN_COMPDB_OPTIONS:-}"
+
+        # Setting TEST_TMPDIR here so the compdb headers won't be overwritten by another bazel run.
+        TEST_TMPDIR="${BUILD_DIR}/envoy-compdb" \
+            "${CURRENT_SCRIPT_DIR}/../tools/gen_compilation_database.py" \
+            "${ENVOY_GEN_COMPDB_OPTIONS[@]}"
+        # Kill clangd to reload the compilation database
+        pkill clangd || :
         ;;
 
     *)
diff --git a/ci/run_envoy_docker.sh b/ci/run_envoy_docker.sh
index 8c65e97372698..72251f96e2626 100755
--- a/ci/run_envoy_docker.sh
+++ b/ci/run_envoy_docker.sh
@@ -158,6 +158,7 @@ docker run --rm \
        -e ENVOY_PUBLISH_DRY_RUN \
        -e ENVOY_REPO \
        -e ENVOY_TARBALL_DIR \
+       -e ENVOY_GEN_COMPDB_OPTIONS \
        -e SYSTEM_PULLREQUEST_PULLREQUESTNUMBER \
        -e GCS_ARTIFACT_BUCKET \
        -e GITHUB_REF_NAME \