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Launch HN: Nia (YC S25) – Give better context to coding agents

trynia.ai

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Re: Launch HN: Nia (YC S25) – Give better context to coding agents

#41

Post by jellyotsiro »

canopi wrote: post #38

Congrats on the launch. The problem is definitely there. I wonder how are you planning to differentiate yourself from Cursor and the like. You mention you are complementary, but Cursor provide similar features to add external doc context for instance to a prompt. I understand you do better in your benchmark, but with the amount of funding they may be able to replicate and improve over it (unless you have a secret thi…

as I mentioned above there are many more use cases than just coding (APIs, research, knowledge bases, even personal or enterprise data sources the agent needs to explore and validate dynamically)

I started out with coding agents specifically because it came from personal pain of how horrible they are with providing up to date context.

Re: Launch HN: Nia (YC S25) – Give better context to coding agents

#42

Post by ModernMech »

dang wrote: post #32
ModernMech wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Please make your substantive points without being snarky or aggressive. You have a good point in there at the end, but the site guidelines ask you not to comment like this, and that's especially important in Show or Launch threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ok here is my less snarky and less aggressive take on the site and product: it doesn't leave me with confidence, it makes me feel uneasy about them as a company, it makes me not trust them, and it makes me feel like I'm being lied to. To fix this, provide proof. Otherwise, stop making the claims. Unfortunately with the frequency these kinds of products come out of YC, it seems like maybe YC coaches these companies as if this is an effective way to communicate.

Re: Launch HN: Nia (YC S25) – Give better context to coding agents

#43

Post by ModernMech »

marwamc wrote: post #27

I've no idea what their architecture/implementation looks like, but I've built a similar tool for my own use and the improvements are dramatic to say the least. Mine's a simple BM25 index for code keyword search (I use it alongside serena-mcp) and for some use cases the speeds and token efficiency are insane. https://gitlab.com/rhobimd-oss/shebe#comparison-shebe-vs-alt...

It's amazing that you can do this on your own but the company in question cannot although they have raised $6M. If your README were their entire pitch and website and, it would be 100000x more convincing.

Re: Launch HN: Nia (YC S25) – Give better context to coding agents

#44

Post by pdyc »

ModernMech wrote: post #42
dang wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please make your substantive points without being snarky or aggressive. You have a good point in there at the end, but the site guidelines ask you not to comment like this, and that's especially important in Show or Launch threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ok here is my less snarky and less aggressive take on the site and product: it doesn't leave me with confidence, it makes me feel uneasy about them as a company, it makes me not trust them, and it makes me feel like I'm being lied to. To fix this, provide proof. Otherwise, stop making the claims. Unfortunately with the frequency these kinds of products come out of YC, it seems like maybe YC coaches these companies as…

i am interested in knowing what would be the correct way to do it according to your checklist. For example you said testimonial from twitter can be bots, which testimonial according to you would give you confidence that product is genuine?

Re: Launch HN: Nia (YC S25) – Give better context to coding agents

#47

Post by jellyotsiro »

kenforthewin wrote: post #45

Congrats. From my experience, Augment ( https://augmentcode.com ) is best in class for AI code context. How does this compare?

augment is a coding agent. nia is an external context engine for coding agents that improves their code output quality

Re: Launch HN: Nia (YC S25) – Give better context to coding agents

#48

Post by marwamc »

dang wrote: post #33
marwamc wrote: post #27

I've no idea what their architecture/implementation looks like, but I've built a similar tool for my own use and the improvements are dramatic to say the least. Mine's a simple BM25 index for code keyword search (I use it alongside serena-mcp) and for some use cases the speeds and token efficiency are insane. https://gitlab.com/rhobimd-oss/shebe#comparison-shebe-vs-alt...

(I detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46195560 because your comment is fine and I don't want it to be penalized.)

Thanks @dang

Re: Launch HN: Nia (YC S25) – Give better context to coding agents

#50

Post by nrhrjrjrjtntbt »

jellyotsiro wrote: post #26
jondwillis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what GP is saying. This is the Docs feature of Cursor. It covers external docs/arbitrary web content. `@Docs` — will show a bunch of pre-indexed Docs, and you can add whatever you want and it’ll show up in the list. You can see the state of Docs indexing in Cursor Settings. The UX leaves a bit to be desired, but that’s a problem Cursor seems to have in general.

yeah ux is pretty bad and overall functionality. it still relies on a static retrieval layer and limited index scope. + as I mentioned above there are many more use cases than just coding.Think docs, APIs, research, knowledge bases, even personal or enterprise data sources the agent needs to explore and validate dynamically.

As an AI user (claude code, rovo, github copilot) I have come across this. In code it didnt build something right where it needed to use up to date docs. Luckily those people have now made an MCP but I had to wait. For a different project I may be SOL. Suprised this isnt solved, well done for taking it on.

From a business point of view I am not sure how you get traction without being 10x better than what Cursor can produce tomorrow. If you are successful the coding agents will copy your idea and then people being lazy and using what works have no inventive to switch.

I am not trying to discourage. More like encourage you to figure out how you get that elusive moat that all startups seek.

As a user I am excited to try it soon. Got something in mind that this should make easier.

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