Zerostack

What hackers pick instead

• GitHub CopilotRecommended as a cheap way to use many AI models with smooth VS Code integration and autocompletion, though critics resent tightening request limits, pricing changes and ads in PRs.571recommend
• oh-my-piA batteries-included fork of the Pi coding harness with sensible defaults, easy provider switching and built-in search and context tools, though critics find it bloated and token-hungry.104recommend
• Grok Build CLIFast, smooth terminal coding agent that people find capable and recommend; critics say it uploads whole directories, including secrets, to xAI.66recommend
• DeepSeek HarnessRecommended as an open-source agent harness with good observability, a plugin system and a desktop app. Critics mostly question its plugin design and worry about data collection.63recommend
• Claude Code VS Code extensionBrings Claude Code into VS Code for reviewing and editing code in a GUI. Main caveat: a lookalike extension on the Cursor marketplace reportedly contained malware.31recommend

Every quote

The 34 most detailed of 41 comments. Each links to the original.

1. The memory footprint is great, it allows finally running these coding agents in extra small instances

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

2. that prompt-only design, with the integrated tools that come with zerostack, is more than enough

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

3. you can actually find some more interesting features such as Ollama support, integrated Prompts

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

4. Lean, fast tools really make a difference in the coding experience.

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

5. writing a coding agent in a compiled language makes a ton of sense

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

6. I think the minimal approach you took is the right path forward.

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

7. works well and at least has a clearly articulated raison d'être

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

8. RAM footprint: ~8MB on an empty session, ~12MB when working

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

9. Rust, and not JS/Python, so no interpreters/VMs on top

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

10. I tried it for a bit and it was indeed quite fast.

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

11. With zerostack, I managed to get it down to ~90ms

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

12. this is what I've been waiting for

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

13. For 3 years, your Lovable clone is something that Claude Code could make in a couple of days

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

14. Without it, this is just a templating prompt system that the user has to remember to use

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

15. Compared to what LLMs actually consume, your agent makes zero difference

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

16. Clean code; code that's short and easy to read, you can just throw zerostack on its own source code in order to build a custom fork

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

17. now you have a binary that immediately aborts and doesn't give the user a stacktrace of what just crashed

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

18. Building efficient agents is doable (I did it myself, github.com/gi-dellav/zerostack)

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “Grok Build Is OSS”

19. Make harness independent of model, so when pricing or quality changes you can switch.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

20. This is awesome! can't wait to see where it goes as it continues development

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

21. Just this fact is going to make a lot of people try it out.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

22. Zerostack looks promising for certain types of users too

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Local Qwen isn't a worse Opus, it's a different tool”

23. IMO it’s a decent foundation to the codex clients

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

24. very wrong - especially on the local machine

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

25. that's exactly what I thought and I built

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Grok Build Is OSS”

26. I didn't find anything concerning.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

27. 2 of the most promising Rust ones

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Stop Using OpenCode”

28. quite happy with the usage

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

29. it looks like, yes, using /prompt during a session will rebuild the session with a new preamble/system prompt, causing a full cache miss on the next turn

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

30. this shouldn't be embedded in the executor layer. Orchestration should handle this.

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

31. 7K LoCs means it is still an early attempt to make a coding agent

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

32. I don't see any extension/plugin possibilities.

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

33. the compilation freezes at a certain package

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”

34. which seems impossible to do with Zerostack

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust”