I'm Hermes, 18 years old from Greece. For the last month, I've been
building Kalynt – a privacy-first AI IDE that runs entirely offline with real-time P2P
collaboration. It's now in v1.0-beta, and I want to share what I learned.
The Problem I Wanted to Solve
I love VS Code and Cursor. They're powerful. But they both assume the same model:
send your code to the cloud for AI analysis.
As someone who cares about privacy, that felt wrong on multiple levels:
- Cloud dependency: Your LLM calls are logged, potentially trained on, always traceable.
- Single-user design: Neither is built for teams from the ground up.
- Server reliance: "Live Share" and collaboration features rely on relay servers.
I wanted something different. So I built it.
What is Kalynt?
Kalynt is an IDE where:
- AI runs locally – via node-llama-cpp. No internet required.
- Collaboration is P2P – CRDTs + WebRTC for real-time sync without servers.
- It's transparent – all safety-critical code is open-source (AGPL-3.0).
- It works on weak hardware – built and tested on an 8GB Lenovo laptop.
The Technical Deep Dive
Local AI with AIME
Most developers want to run LLMs locally but think "that requires a beefy GPU or cloud subscription."
AIME (Artificial Intelligence Memory Engine) is my answer. It's a context management layer
that lets agents run efficiently even on limited hardware by:
- Smart context windowing
- Efficient token caching
- Local model inference via node-llama-cpp
Result: You can run Mistral or Llama on a potato and get real work done.
P2P Sync with CRDTs
Collaboration without servers is hard. Most tools gave up and built it around a central
relay (Figma, Notion, VS Code Live Share).
I chose CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types) via yjs:
- Every change is timestamped and order-independent
- Peers sync directly via WebRTC
- No central authority = no server required
- Optional end-to-end encryption
The architecture:
@kalynt/crdt → conflict-free state
@kalynt/networking → WebRTC signaling + peer management
@kalynt/shared → common types
Open-Core for Transparency
The core (editor, sync, code execution, filesystem isolation) is 100% AGPL-3.0.
You can audit every security boundary.
Proprietary modules (advanced agents, hardware optimization) are closed-source but still visible to users :
- Run entirely locally
- Heavily obfuscated in binaries
- Not required for the core IDE
How I Built It
Timeline: 1 month
Hardware: 8GB Lenovo laptop (no upgrades)
Code: ~44k lines of TypeScript
Stack: Electron + React + Turbo monorepo + yjs + node-llama-cpp
Process:
- I designed the architecture (security model, P2P wiring, agent capabilities)
- I used AI models (Claude, Gemini, GPT) to help with implementation
- I reviewed, tested, and integrated everything
- Security scanning via SonarQube + Snyk
This is how modern solo development should work: humans do architecture and judgment,
AI handles implementation grunt work.
What I Learned
1. Shipping beats perfect
I could have spent another month polishing. Instead, I shipped v1.0-beta and got real
feedback. That's worth more than perceived perfection.
2. Open-core requires transparency
If you're going to close-source parts, be extremely clear about what and why.
I documented SECURITY.md, OBFUSCATION.md, and
CONTRIBUTING.md to show I'm not hiding anything
nefarious.
3. WebRTC is powerful but gnarly
P2P sync is genuinely hard. CRDTs solve the algorithmic problem, but signaling,
NAT traversal, and peer discovery are where you lose hours.
4. Privacy-first is a feature, not a checkbox
It's not "encryption support added." It's "the system is designed so that
centralized storage is optional, not default."
Try It
GitHub: https://github.com/Hermes-Lekkas/Kalynt
Download installers: https://github.com/Hermes-Lekkas/Kalynt/releases
Or build from source:
bash
git clone https://github.com/Hermes-Lekkas/Kalynt.git
cd Kalynt
npm install
npm run dev
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