Every few years, there's a wave of developer tools that try to bring the coding experience into the browser. GitHub Codespaces, StackBlitz, CodeSandbox - they're all great. But there's something about the terminal that these tools can't replicate.
The terminal is the most honest interface a developer has. No animations, no loading spinners, no drag-and-drop abstractions. Just input, output, and the full power of the system underneath.
Why terminal?
When I started building YourCode, I asked myself: what would a coding agent look like if the terminal was the primary interface? Not a plugin for VS Code. Not a web app. Just a terminal.
The answer turned out to be surprisingly clean:
- Zero dependencies - no Electron, no browser, no runtime. Just the terminal you already have.
- Monorepo architecture - CLI, server, database, and shared packages, each independently developable.
- Persistent sessions - pick up where you left off, even after closing the terminal.
- Customizable themes - because developers care about how their tools look, even in the terminal.
The architecture
YourCode is structured as a monorepo with four packages:
cli- the developer-facing interfaceserver- backend services and AI integrationdatabase- persistence layershared- common types and utilities
This separation means I can swap out the AI provider, change the storage backend, or redesign the CLI without breaking anything else. Clean boundaries matter.
Open source
I decided to make YourCode open-source from day one. Not because I expect a huge community (yet), but because I believe developer tools should be transparent. You should be able to read the code, understand the decisions, and fork it if my choices don't match yours.
Check it out at yourcode.space or on GitHub.