{"slug": "ctx", "name": "ctx", "category": "ai-coding", "category_name": "AI coding tools", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 6, "warners": 2, "score": 0.495, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2026-04-03", "latest": "2026-09-07", "why": "I use https://usegitai.com/ and https://ctx.rs/ to preserve and search them.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 2}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I use https://usegitai.com/ and https://ctx.rs/ to preserve and search them.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "ctx.rs", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://ctx.rs", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["ctx", "ctx.traits", "Ctx"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 782754177, "item_id": 48922136, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48922136", "by": "esafak", "date": "2026-07-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use https://usegitai.com/ and https://ctx.rs/ to preserve and search them.", "excerpt": "I use https://usegitai.com/ and https://ctx.rs/ to preserve and search them.", "context": "", "use_case": "preserving and searching AI transcripts", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Grepathy \u2013 Claude made a decision nobody approved"}, {"id": 782105120, "item_id": 48881570, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48881570", "by": "esafak", "date": "2026-07-12", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "for which I'm using https://ctx.rs/", "excerpt": "I think the chord diagram in the video is not informative. Generally speaking I suggest starting with the problem you are trying to shed light on, and device the visualization accordingly. For example, if you are shipping a mobile app and want to keep your package small, the treemap in the video would help you understand how the space is allocated. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_diagram_(information_visualizat", "context": "", "use_case": "agent memory and communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Mindwalk \u2013 Replay coding-agent sessions on a 3D map of your codebase"}, {"id": 780466256, "item_id": 48779141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48779141", "by": "alex_hirner", "date": "2026-07-03", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like the CLI interface, very comprehensive.", "excerpt": "I like the CLI interface, very comprehensive. However, I'm puzzled by pi support: https://github.com/ctxrs/ctx/issues/40", "context": "", "use_case": "searching coding agent history", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: ctx \u2013 Search the coding agent history already on your machine"}, {"id": 762049600, "item_id": 47628100, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628100", "by": "mattv8", "date": "2026-04-03", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'll definitely give ctx a try.", "excerpt": "Thanks for the response. I'll definitely give ctx a try.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: ctx \u2013 an Agentic Development Environment (ADE)"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 773730163, "item_id": 48358135, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48358135", "by": "0xbadcafebee", "date": "2026-06-01", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "A student researcher took over Python ctx and PHPass package maintainership, pushing out malicious changes", "excerpt": "The package event-stream was compromised and went unnoticed for 60 days: https://medium.com/intrinsic-blog/compromised-npm-package-event-stream-d47d08605502 The package axios was compromised, and hijacked the author's credentials, so every attempt at a fix was unfixed. https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/26/c/axios-npm-package-compromised.html The xz utility was backdoored for 2 months: https://gigazine.net/gsc", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "NPM packages from RedHat have been compromised"}, {"id": 762048816, "item_id": 47628051, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628051", "by": "sspiff", "date": "2026-04-03", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "There's no code, no license, no nothing.", "excerpt": "What is the point of hosting a GitHub repo[0] with nothing in it but some links to your domain? There's no code, no license, no nothing. [0] https://github.com/ctxrs/ctx", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: ctx \u2013 an Agentic Development Environment (ADE)"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["ai session memory", "preserving and searching ai transcripts", "agent memory and communication", "searching coding agent history"], "compared": [{"slug": "git-ai", "name": "Git AI", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "codex", "name": "Codex", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 800484320, "item_id": 50030270, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030270", "by": "rpunkfu", "date": "2026-10-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "since API and capabilities of ctx grew a lot", "excerpt": "I\u2019ll have to update the blog post, since API and capabilities of ctx grew a lot but one of examples here explain for we\u2019re doing it. https://ctx.company/blog/introducing-ctx-traits/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rewriting Prime Agent in Rust"}, {"id": 790403104, "item_id": 49400194, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49400194", "by": "rpunkfu", "date": "2026-08-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "developing this approach as ctx.traits", "excerpt": "I believe that \u201cit\u2019s about the harness\u201d captures an important idea, but I also think it\u2019s helpful to consider the harness and the procedure separately. The harness provides the model with its tools, context, and environment for execution. However, I prefer not to have the model within that harness also bear the responsibility for remembering the process steps\u2014like plan, implement, review, fix, and verify\u2014deciding whe", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A week of using Codex more than Claude"}, {"id": 790234272, "item_id": 49389642, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49389642", "by": "luca-ctx", "date": "2026-08-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's an open-source local CLI for searching your coding agent history.", "excerpt": "OP here ctx has reached major stable version 1.0. It's an open-source local CLI for searching your coding agent history. 1.0 brings several big changes: - switched from sqlite to Tantivy, resulting in ~16x performance improvement - introduced \"lineage\", so the CLI can understand how to trace deep subagents and forked sessions to where they came from - introduced \"ctx blame\", which is like git blame but for agent sess", "context": "OP, author of ctx", "use_case": "searching coding agent history", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: ctx 1.0 - `git blame` but for agent sessions"}, {"id": 790154128, "item_id": 49384633, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384633", "by": "rpunkfu", "date": "2026-08-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I think you might be interested in what I\u2019m working on", "excerpt": "I think you might be interested in what I\u2019m working on: https://ctx.company/blog/introducing-ctx-traits/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Huzzah \u2013 a novel approach to coding with AI"}, {"id": 786892240, "item_id": 49180765, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49180765", "by": "rpunkfu", "date": "2026-08-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is exactly what I\u2019ve been building with ctx.traits", "excerpt": "This is exactly what I\u2019ve been building with ctx.traits :) https://ctx.company/traits/docs/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flowise Is Shutting Down"}, {"id": 777142752, "item_id": 48571422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571422", "by": "luca-ctx", "date": "2026-06-17", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ctx is now open-source", "excerpt": "Hi HN, OP here. We posted here back in April and the most common request was to make the source code public. As of today, ctx is now open-source: https://github.com/ctxrs/ctx ctx is an Agentic Development Environment (ADE), similar to the Codex desktop app, but it works with any agent harness. I wrote more about why we are open sourcing it here: https://ctx.rs/blog/open-sourcing-ctx A few things contributed to the de", "context": "", "use_case": "agentic development environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "ctx, a hackable desktop workbench for coding agents, is now open source"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47626598", "title": "Show HN: ctx \u2013 an Agentic Development Environment (ADE)", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50027694", "title": "Rewriting Prime Agent in Rust", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49594008", "title": "Show HN: Engrim \u2013 A universal, local-first SQLite memory engine for AI CLIs", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393051", "title": "A week of using Codex more than Claude", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49389641", "title": "Show HN: ctx 1.0 - `git blame` but for agent sessions", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49378768", "title": "Show HN: Huzzah \u2013 a novel approach to coding with AI", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"warn": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 793584688, "item_id": 49599043, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49599043", "by": "flippant", "date": "2026-09-07", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've been using another memory plugin [1] for the past couple months.", "excerpt": "Congrats on releasing! I've been using another memory plugin [1] for the past couple months. Since this change, I almost never run session compaction. Instead, I opt to just make a new session, give the agent a task, and have it figure out what happened in previous session(s). Decision summaries look really cool -- though the agent/model info probably won't be useful for me because I don't actually ever let agents co", "context": "", "use_case": "AI session memory", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Engrim \u2013 A universal, local-first SQLite memory engine for AI CLIs"}, {"id": 782773696, "item_id": 48923356, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48923356", "by": "esafak", "date": "2026-07-15", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "Similar to https://ctx.rs/ and others, I'm sure.", "excerpt": "Similar to https://ctx.rs/ and others, I'm sure. I'd lead with your differentiation. Is it the ssh?", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open-source memory for coding agents, synced over SSH"}, {"id": 782754177, "item_id": 48922136, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48922136", "by": "esafak", "date": "2026-07-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use https://usegitai.com/ and https://ctx.rs/ to preserve and search them.", "excerpt": "I use https://usegitai.com/ and https://ctx.rs/ to preserve and search them.", "context": "", "use_case": "preserving and searching AI transcripts", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Grepathy \u2013 Claude made a decision nobody approved"}, {"id": 782105120, "item_id": 48881570, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48881570", "by": "esafak", "date": "2026-07-12", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "for which I'm using https://ctx.rs/", "excerpt": "I think the chord diagram in the video is not informative. Generally speaking I suggest starting with the problem you are trying to shed light on, and device the visualization accordingly. For example, if you are shipping a mobile app and want to keep your package small, the treemap in the video would help you understand how the space is allocated. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_diagram_(information_visualizat", "context": "", "use_case": "agent memory and communication", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Mindwalk \u2013 Replay coding-agent sessions on a 3D map of your codebase"}, {"id": 780466256, "item_id": 48779141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48779141", "by": "alex_hirner", "date": "2026-07-03", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like the CLI interface, very comprehensive.", "excerpt": "I like the CLI interface, very comprehensive. However, I'm puzzled by pi support: https://github.com/ctxrs/ctx/issues/40", "context": "", "use_case": "searching coding agent history", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: ctx \u2013 Search the coding agent history already on your machine"}, {"id": 773730163, "item_id": 48358135, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48358135", "by": "0xbadcafebee", "date": "2026-06-01", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "A student researcher took over Python ctx and PHPass package maintainership, pushing out malicious changes", "excerpt": "The package event-stream was compromised and went unnoticed for 60 days: https://medium.com/intrinsic-blog/compromised-npm-package-event-stream-d47d08605502 The package axios was compromised, and hijacked the author's credentials, so every attempt at a fix was unfixed. https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/26/c/axios-npm-package-compromised.html The xz utility was backdoored for 2 months: https://gigazine.net/gsc", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "NPM packages from RedHat have been compromised"}, {"id": 762049600, "item_id": 47628100, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628100", "by": "mattv8", "date": "2026-04-03", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'll definitely give ctx a try.", "excerpt": "Thanks for the response. I'll definitely give ctx a try.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: ctx \u2013 an Agentic Development Environment (ADE)"}, {"id": 762048816, "item_id": 47628051, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628051", "by": "sspiff", "date": "2026-04-03", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "There's no code, no license, no nothing.", "excerpt": "What is the point of hosting a GitHub repo[0] with nothing in it but some links to your domain? There's no code, no license, no nothing. [0] https://github.com/ctxrs/ctx", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: ctx \u2013 an Agentic Development Environment (ADE)"}]}