#48 of 100 · AI
A coding agent for any model
A Claude Code style coding agent that runs on any provider or local model, mixes models per step, and can open PRs from a sandbox.
Asks per year
What the askers want
- Would pay0%
- Want it local or private33%
- Object to subscriptions0%
- Want it open source or self-hosted56%
- Want AI to do it100%
Share of the 9 asks that say so, as judged by Jev.
What exists on Show HN
Built, still asked for4 Show HN launches do this job, and 13 more do part of it. People still ask, so the launches are missed, unknown, or not what they want. Ask what they’re missing before you build.
- Plandex v2 – open source AI coding agent for large projects and tasks2025 · 257 pts
- MyCoder, an open source Claude-Code alternative2025 · 125 pts
- Octofriend, a cute coding agent that can swap between GPT-5 and Claude2025 · 107 pts
- Gulama – Security-first open-source AI agent (OpenClaw alternative)2026 · 1 pts
Instead of: Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Codex, Aider
The idea, as matched
An open-source coding agent like Claude Code that works with any provider or local model, can mix models (cheap/fast for routine steps, strong for planning, subagents on other providers) and can open PRs from a sandbox.
Jev first matched 18 requests to this idea; a second reader kept 9 of 18.
Every ask, newest first
Each line is an AI paraphrase of what the writer wanted. The link goes to their own words on Hacker News.
Reader’s note. Mostly 2025 to 2026; many vague 'better agent?' asks dropped.
- Sep 2026Wants a tool letting one provider's model call subagents from other providers and track the delegated work's status. Read it: a comment in “Sonnet 5.5”
- May 2026Wants a harness where a fast model keeps them in flow and a slower model reviews its work. Read it: a comment in “Gemini 3.5 Flash”
- Apr 2026Asks whether a better coding agent than Claude Code exists for use with local models. Read it: a comment in “Running Gemma 4 locally with LM Studio's new headless CLI and Claude Code”
- Mar 2026Wants a stronger agent harness for open models, after Qwen failed in Codex CLI and Roo Code. Read it: a comment in “Something is afoot in the land of Qwen”
- Nov 2025Wants one top open coding agent that supports any model provider, instead of vendor-specific CLIs. Read it: a comment in “Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding”
- Aug 2025Wants a Claude Code-like coding loop that supports other, possibly local, models with less manual work than Aider. Read it: a comment in “Claude Opus 4.1”
- May 2025Wants an open source Codex-style service running agents in microVMs on a cloned repo, then sending a PR. Read it: a comment in “A Research Preview of Codex”
- Apr 2025Wants a coding agent alternative to Claude Code with similar quality using cheaper models like Gemini Flash. Read it: a post: “Claude Code Alternatives?”
- Aug 2023Wants a self-hosted CLI tool that points at any git repo and commits proposed changes to a branch. Read it: a comment in “Using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to clear our GitHub backlog”
Building this?
Read ten of the asks above first, because they say what the existing launches miss. If you ship it, post it as a Show HN so the next run of this list finds it.
Ship it like Vercel, on a server you own
This site runs on ShipTiffin. A push to GitHub deploys it, the way it would on Vercel, but the server is a Hetzner box in your own account. Postgres, sign-in, email, jobs and analytics are already on it, every project gets a hard limit, and nothing is billed by usage.
$19 a month per box, plus about $10 for the server at Hetzner. Open source, so you can also run it yourself for free.