# Shelley

12 Hacker News commenters recommended Shelley and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Praised as a capable web-based coding agent that runs in a Linux VM, can use a browser to test sites, and keeps searchable conversation history. Critics mention it is hard to get running.

## Why people recommend it

- Browser UI works on any device (3 comments): "Shelley is very good: running everything in a VM and using a web browser as your UI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49298328)) "works fine in a web browser on my laptop, tablet, and phone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47866617)) "quite adequate for using from the phone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46492681))
- Searches past conversations via SQLite (3 comments): "I can refer to a previous conversation and the agent can easily do a Sqlite query to see what happened." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46968930)) "the agent Shelley on exe can search past convos when promoted too for continuation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46986318)) "already uses sqlite to store converians is searchable from the UI as well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48779176))
- Runs in a Linux VM (2 comments): "Shelley is very good: running everything in a VM and using a web browser as your UI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49298328)) "On exe.dev the agent (Shelley) runs in a Linux VM, which is the security boundary." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47991419))
- Tests websites in a browser (2 comments): "Shelley wrote all the code. It was also quite good at launching a browser, seeing the site, scrolling & navigating" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46538459)) "Shelley is a great feature and must have well-designed system prompts and tools for testing the website built-in." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405888))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [GitHub Copilot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-copilot.md): 571 recommend
- [oh-my-pi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oh-my-pi.md): 104 recommend
- [Grok Build CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grok-build.md): 66 recommend
- [DeepSeek Harness](https://hackerapproved.com/p/deepseek-harness.md): 63 recommend
- [Claude Code VS Code extension](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude-code-vs-code-extension.md): 31 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Shelley", https://hackerapproved.com/p/shelley/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).