{"slug": "hax", "name": "hax", "category": "ai-coding", "category_name": "AI coding tools", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 3.532, "rising": 3.0, "first": "2026-08-19", "latest": "2026-10-31", "why": "I love Hax. After a month on Codex, I switched to Hax.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I love Hax. After a month on Codex, I switched to Hax.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/oleksandrchekhovskyi/hax", "official_url": "https://github.com/oleksandrchekhovskyi/hax", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["hax", "Hax"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 805100176, "item_id": 50318761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50318761", "by": "sivers", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Hax. After a month on Codex, I switched to Hax.", "excerpt": "I love Hax. After a month on Codex, I switched to Hax. I've been using Hax exclusively for a few months now. Feels so much better, so lightweight. Compiles instantly. Almost no dependencies. Like something Suckless would make. And unlike all the rest, runs easily on OpenBSD. And as minimal as it is, it even has nice features like showing me after every prompt how much that last task cost me. When I saw the post here ", "context": "OpenBSD user", "use_case": "terminal coding agent", "switched_from": "Codex", "story": "Prospero: A new coding harness for a more civilized age"}, {"id": 798869377, "item_id": 49929336, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49929336", "by": "peter_d_sherman", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Other minimal Open-Source AI Agent Harnesses:", "excerpt": "Other minimal Open-Source AI Agent Harnesses: https://github.com/mudler/nib https://github.com/OleksandrChekhovskyi/hax", "context": "", "use_case": "minimal AI agent harness", "switched_from": "", "story": "Agent-harness \u2013 A minimal, composable Go library to build AI Agent Harnesses"}, {"id": 794571888, "item_id": 49660743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49660743", "by": "crossroadsguy", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "hax looks like the absolute bare minimum one can go while still being usable.", "excerpt": "This looks like such a nice cli/tui talking/chat harness - an agent with which I can work on non-coding tasks (where it literally doesn't need any tool - maybe a read tool for few files in that folder, or not even that) - writing critique (w/ strict strict for on generation/suggestion), analysis, summary etc. I've been so far using pi like this: > pi --offline --no-extensions --no-skills --no-prompt-templates -nc -nt", "context": "", "use_case": "minimal chat agent for non-coding tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Nine coding harnesses vs. your laptop"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "sivers", "context": "OpenBSD user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50318761", "date": "2026-10-31"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["terminal coding agent", "coding agent sessions", "minimal ai agent harness", "minimal chat agent for non-coding tasks", "coding agent"], "compared": [{"slug": "codex", "name": "Codex", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "pi", "name": "Pi", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50315226", "title": "Prospero: A new coding harness for a more civilized age", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49926069", "title": "Pi 1.0", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49929321", "title": "Agent-harness \u2013 A minimal, composable Go library to build AI Agent Harnesses", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49651221", "title": "Nine coding harnesses vs. your laptop", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49353339", "title": "fx :Tiny, open, native coding agent.", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 805100176, "item_id": 50318761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50318761", "by": "sivers", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Hax. After a month on Codex, I switched to Hax.", "excerpt": "I love Hax. After a month on Codex, I switched to Hax. I've been using Hax exclusively for a few months now. Feels so much better, so lightweight. Compiles instantly. Almost no dependencies. Like something Suckless would make. And unlike all the rest, runs easily on OpenBSD. And as minimal as it is, it even has nice features like showing me after every prompt how much that last task cost me. When I saw the post here ", "context": "OpenBSD user", "use_case": "terminal coding agent", "switched_from": "Codex", "story": "Prospero: A new coding harness for a more civilized age"}, {"id": 798939811, "item_id": 49933738, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49933738", "by": "tingletech", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've run sessions in hax where it hit that cap multiple times", "excerpt": "I use it with a local Qwen3.8 27B on llama-server, but I don't know what it means for it exceed any window. you can use /slots on the llama-server if you want to get more up-to-date details on session token use. I always run models in their default context, which is 262144 for Qwen3.8 27B. I've run sessions in hax where it hit that cap multiple times and compressed the context down to 15% and continued with no proble", "context": "", "use_case": "coding agent sessions", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pi 1.0"}, {"id": 798869377, "item_id": 49929336, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49929336", "by": "peter_d_sherman", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Other minimal Open-Source AI Agent Harnesses:", "excerpt": "Other minimal Open-Source AI Agent Harnesses: https://github.com/mudler/nib https://github.com/OleksandrChekhovskyi/hax", "context": "", "use_case": "minimal AI agent harness", "switched_from": "", "story": "Agent-harness \u2013 A minimal, composable Go library to build AI Agent Harnesses"}, {"id": 794571888, "item_id": 49660743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49660743", "by": "crossroadsguy", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "hax looks like the absolute bare minimum one can go while still being usable.", "excerpt": "This looks like such a nice cli/tui talking/chat harness - an agent with which I can work on non-coding tasks (where it literally doesn't need any tool - maybe a read tool for few files in that folder, or not even that) - writing critique (w/ strict strict for on generation/suggestion), analysis, summary etc. I've been so far using pi like this: > pi --offline --no-extensions --no-skills --no-prompt-templates -nc -nt", "context": "", "use_case": "minimal chat agent for non-coding tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Nine coding harnesses vs. your laptop"}, {"id": 789939968, "item_id": 49371248, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49371248", "by": "philips", "date": "2026-08-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I don\u2019t know if I am ready to use a new tool written in C and using libcurl but I will give it a shot.", "excerpt": "I really like the philosophy document! https://github.com/OleksandrChekhovskyi/hax/blob/master/docs/philosophy.md I don\u2019t know if I am ready to use a new tool written in C and using libcurl but I will give it a shot.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding agent", "switched_from": "", "story": "fx :Tiny, open, native coding agent."}]}