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Amariah Kamau
Amariah Kamau

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Why I Built a Local-First AI Coding Agent Instead of Another Chat Assistant

Most AI coding tools today stop at suggestions.

They generate code, explain snippets, maybe autocomplete — and then hand everything back to you. The moment something breaks, you’re copy-pasting logs, errors, and screenshots into a chat box.

I wanted something different.

I wanted an AI that lives inside my actual development environment.

That’s why I built Atlarix — a desktop-native, privacy-first AI coding agent.


The problem with cloud-first AI assistants

Most assistants today:

  • Run in the cloud
  • Don’t see your real file system
  • Don’t run your code
  • Can’t observe build errors directly

They’re helpful, but they’re disconnected from reality.

As developers, our workflow isn’t text — it’s terminals, servers, logs, broken builds, and iteration loops.


What “agentic” actually means in practice

Atlarix isn’t a chat assistant. It’s an agent.

That means it can:

  • Run terminal commands
  • Read compiler and runtime errors
  • Spin up real dev servers (Vite, Next.js, Python, Go)
  • Fix issues in loops without you pasting stack traces

It sees what you see — and acts on it.


Local-first by default

Privacy wasn’t an afterthought.

Atlarix runs on your machine and uses BYOK (Bring Your Own Keys):

  • OpenAI / Anthropic
  • OpenRouter
  • Or fully local models via Ollama / LM Studio

Your code stays yours.


Why a desktop app (not a VS Code extension)

I didn’t want to be constrained by editor sandboxes.

A native desktop app can:

  • Control the terminal
  • Access the file system
  • Orchestrate multiple tools at once
  • Run longer agentic workflows safely

That freedom matters if you want AI to do real work.


Shipping v1.0

Atlarix v1.0 is live.

I’m less interested in hype and more interested in feedback — especially from developers who actually ship and care about privacy, control, and workflow realism.

You can explore it here:

👉 https://www.atlarix.dev/

If you try it, I’d love to hear:

  • What feels magical
  • What feels off
  • What breaks immediately

That’s how better tools get built.


Code smart. Stay authentic.

I’ll see you in the next one 🚀

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