The last mile of AI-assisted coding: I built a minimal IDE for the review-and-commit loop

SOUMITRA SAHA — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 19:14:09 +0000

Most code is written by AI agents now. What's left for us is the last mile: review what the agent changed, make small surgical edits, stage the right files, and ship.

Existing IDEs are built for a world where you write all the code. herdr-mIDE is built for the world where you don't — a layout + mod package for the Herdr app: a better file manager, a better git panel, and a minimal editor, living in the same window as your terminals and coding agents.

The idea

The Herdr app redraws its whole interface from files — layouts are JSON trees, panels are small JavaScript mods with a GPU UI, and it hot-reloads them while it runs. So a mod package can become a whole IDE experience without forking the app: terminals, agents, themes, spaces and remote machines come free from the host.

What you get

📁 Files — a file manager that tells you everything at a glance

File-type icons (curated Material Icon Theme set, MIT)
Git status baked into the tree: 🟡 modified/conflicted, 🟢 new/untracked, 🔴 deleted — the whole filename is colored, plus a bold status letter
Lazy folders and live refresh — click a file to open it in the editor pane

🌿 Changes — a git panel for the review-and-commit loop

Tracked and Untracked groups with tri-state staging checkboxes
Stage All / Unstage All, with per-group selection
Line-numbered diff view with tinted additions and deletions
Commit flow and a branch switcher (switch, create, delete)

⌨️ Editor — a minimal editor pane

Syntax highlighting (Ayu Dark palette)
Save button, optional ⌘S shortcut, unsaved indicator
Markdown Preview tab

Try it

git clone https://github.com/SOUMITRO-SAHA/herdr-mIDE
cd herdr-mIDE
./install.sh
herdr-app do layout.switch --name herdr-mide

Needs Herdr 0.1.13. Apache-2.0. Verified live on macOS; Linux and Windows have partial automated coverage (matrix in docs/TESTING.md).

What's next

Vim mode (custom editor core), hunk-level staging, and an agent-review flow — full roadmap in docs/ROADMAP.md.

Repo: https://github.com/SOUMITRO-SAHA/herdr-mIDE — issues are open, and the contributing flow is issue-first.

I'd genuinely like feedback: does an IDE for the review-and-commit loop match how you work with agents now? What's missing from your last mile?

DEV Community: SOUMITRA SAHA