9ed — A Zed-like Editor You Can Access From Anywhere

Muhammad Tri Wibowo — Sun, 10 May 2026 17:38:44 +0000

A few months ago I started looking for a development setup that felt fast, lightweight, and easy to access remotely.

I really like Zed.
It feels fast, modern, and much less bloated than Electron-based editors.

But I kept running into one problem:

I wanted something I could open from anywhere through the browser.

Not a full cloud platform.
Not a heavy VSCode-in-the-browser setup.
Just a lightweight remote-first IDE that I could run on my VPS or homelab server.

So I started building my own.

The project is called 9ed.

What is 9ed?

9ed is a browser-based IDE built with:

Go backend
Monaco Editor
PTY terminal sessions
Git integration
AI chat support through ACP
Built-in tunnel support

The goal is simple:

Make remote development feel lightweight again.

Why not just use VSCode Server?

I tried.

It works well, but on smaller VPS instances it started feeling heavy pretty quickly.

Especially when:

multiple extensions are installed
several workspaces are open
AI tooling is running
browser tabs pile up

I wanted something:

simpler
faster to boot
easier to deploy
more focused on remote workflows

Not necessarily a replacement for VSCode, but something optimized for a different use case.

The Architecture

The backend is written in Go.

Main reasons:

easy static deployment
lightweight runtime
PTY handling
concurrency
cross-platform support

The frontend uses:

React
Monaco Editor
Zustand
xterm.js

The terminal is PTY-backed, so commands behave like a real shell instead of a fake terminal emulator.

That means things like:

interactive CLI apps
vim
tmux
git tools
AI coding agents

all work properly.

AI Agent Support

One thing I wanted from the beginning was proper AI agent integration.

Not just “send prompt → receive text”.

9ed uses ACP (Agent Client Protocol), which is basically structured JSON-RPC communication between the editor and coding agents.

Right now it supports:

OpenCode
Claude Code
Codex CLI
Gemini
Amp
Pi
GitHub Copilot CLI

There’s also PTY fallback support for tools that don’t implement ACP yet.

One feature I ended up liking a lot is permission handling.

When an AI agent wants to:

edit files
run commands
search the project

9ed can show approval dialogs before execution.

It makes the whole thing feel less “black box”.

Built-in Tunnel Support

This was another thing that annoyed me with most remote IDE setups.

Usually the process goes like this:

install editor
setup nginx
setup SSL
configure reverse proxy
expose ports
deal with firewall rules

I wanted something simpler.

So 9ed can automatically start a tunnel using:

Bore
Cloudflare Tunnel

Which means you can run it and immediately access it remotely without additional setup.

Still rough in some places, but surprisingly useful already.

Git Integration

I didn’t want Git to feel like an afterthought.

So I added:

staging
commit
stash
branch switching
diff view
gutter decorations
discard changes

The diff viewer uses Monaco DiffEditor, which turned out to work really well.

Responsive Layout

One unexpected challenge was mobile support.

Most browser IDEs technically “work” on mobile, but usability is painful.

So 9ed changes layout depending on screen size:

desktop → multi-panel
tablet → overlays
mobile → single-panel navigation

It’s still obviously not ideal for serious coding on a phone, but it became much more usable than I initially expected.

Things That Were Harder Than Expected

A few things became surprisingly complicated:

File synchronization

Handling:

external file changes
deleted files
unsaved changes
overwrite conflicts

without destroying editor state took more work than I expected.

ACP integration

Different AI agents behave very differently.

Some stream responses.
Some don’t.
Some expose tools differently.
Some require adapters.

Making all of them work through a unified interface was messy.

Terminal lifecycle

PTY management across platforms is full of edge cases.

Especially:

Windows shells
WSL
process cleanup
zombie sessions

Current State

It’s still evolving pretty fast, but already usable for:

remote development
homelab coding
VPS editing
AI-assisted workflows
browser-based access

There are still many rough edges, but I’m happy with the direction so far.

Screenshots

Explorer
Git diff
AI chat
Mobile layout

GitHub

If you want to try it:

9ed on GitHub

Would love feedback, especially from people doing remote/self-hosted development setups.

DEV Community: Muhammad Tri Wibowo