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Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

crates.io

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Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#291

Post by jen20 »

flossly wrote: post #255
bheadmaster wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you write Rust long enough you settle on certain architectures (message passing, event loops) that go well with the borrow checker So basically Go?

Go only provides one concurrency paradigm. Rust support many (if not all). The type system of Go is very weak. I'd say that'd be my main reason to pass on Go, even when the concurrency paradigm fits the project perfectly.

The biggest reason to pass on Go right now (if your software can tolerate a runtime) is the lack of algebraic data types when doing interesting domain modeling. It makes such a huge difference it’s worth tolerating the pain points of Rust (or Swift, or F#) just to have them.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#292

Post by rbalicki »

rullopat wrote: post #173

I understand the need for memory footprint in some situations, but what's the point of seeking performance for a software that mostly calls LLMs and waits?

That's exactly the tradeoff I made with Barnum (https://barnum-circus.github.io/). It's just not important to optimize the performance of the rust side for the reason you stated. So instead, all focus goes into making it easy for an LLM to build a reliable pipeline (from which LLMs are invoked).

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#293

Post by perlgeek »

Are there any pre-built Linux binaries for this? I tried to install it with cargo, but got "feature `edition2024` is required" (which is the newest cargo available from my current Ubuntu distro).

Also, can I configure zerostack to always require a sandbox? I don't want to accidentally forget to call it with --sandbox.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#294

Post by nicoritschel »

cyberpunk wrote: post #153
rvz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes.

How come the official codex install instructions say use npm install? (I just rebuilt my sandbox vm a few days ago….) Or are there two separate codex clients? https://developers.openai.com/codex/cli

The one from npm is signed by OpenAI, which means computer use from the CLI. The brew distribution requires using the Codex app for computer use.

Thanks Apple.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#295

Post by arjie »

teo-mateo wrote: post #137
arjie wrote: post #111

I had Claude Code build me one of these as well, though I added Dirac's line hashing for edits etc. Also used Rust, and I had this idea that I should use plugins so it can self-edit by implementing in hooks but in the end, I just have it create exhaust information about improvements into a separate file and just update the source code and recompile. The source code is in a fixed place so it can just rewrite and build…

Is it public on github?

Mine? No. It’s super idiosyncratic and I haven’t validated that it has not leaked secrets into the codebase.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#296

Post by mpalmer »

tjoff wrote: post #189
rullopat wrote: post #173

I understand the need for memory footprint in some situations, but what's the point of seeking performance for a software that mostly calls LLMs and waits?

Before I tried coding agents my guess would have been: none. But seeing how slow claude code and copilot cli are and how much ram they use I'm flabbergasted. If you have long running sessions they can both take tens pf gigabytes of ram and feel quite sluggish.

The appetite for Rust is the appetite for higher guardrails. Automatic memory management in safe Rust makes it less likely your app bloats even as its source balloons.

The people "writing" agents are not themselves experts in how to write performant code. Claude Code is so massive and ugly it can only be realistically maintained by continuing to throw LLMs at it. But that's not a replacement for good software design.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#298

Post by ianberdin »

Don’t get me wrong, but 7K LoCs means it is still an early attempt to make a coding agent. It starts easy “ah it can edit and read files!”, but it requires a lot of extra effort to make properly for many edge cases, especially caching, price optimizations, etc.

I’ve been implementing custom coding agent in https://playcode.io for 3 years already. Far beyond of 7K LoCs.

So when you compare to “shitty slow” Claude code - I don’t agree.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#299

Post by gidellav »

ianberdin wrote: post #298

Don’t get me wrong, but 7K LoCs means it is still an early attempt to make a coding agent. It starts easy “ah it can edit and read files!”, but it requires a lot of extra effort to make properly for many edge cases, especially caching, price optimizations, etc. I’ve been implementing custom coding agent in https://playcode.io for 3 years already. Far beyond of 7K LoCs. So when you compare to “shitty slow” Claude code…

Check what tools we already implemented, check your "slow" accusation, check the prompt system, check the provider integration (via Rig, so caching is already enabled), check the MCP support and other integrations that you don't even find on some major agents (git worktrees + loops).

For 3 years, your Lovable clone is something that Claude Code could make in a couple of days, but good luck shitting on other project I guess.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#300

Post by manmal »

i_am_a_peasant wrote: post #252
krzyk wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

codex is in rust and not in power and memory hungry js/ts.

oh sweet I had no idea. funny that i mostly use it to write rust

Check out its app-server, IMO it’s a decent foundation to the codex clients.
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