Gritcode

The AI coding agent that fits in 10 MB. A native desktop agent harness for DeepSeek V4, written in C++20 with wxWidgets. There's no Electron and no browser tab.

gritcode.ai · Download · Features · Compare · ♥ Sponsor

Runs DeepSeek V4 Pro and V4.1 Flash with your API key, or free models through the Kilo Gateway with no key and no sign-up.

Download

Get both from the latest release. On other distributions, build from source.

Features

• An agent with real tools: bash, read, write and edit files, list, grep, web search and URL fetch, with collapsible tool-call cards and thinking blocks
• ▶ Play: the agent saves your project's run command, then one click builds and runs it with no AI round-trip. Output lands in the chat.
• Built-in editor: a file tree plus tree-sitter syntax highlighting, smart indentation and save
• Sessions: per-project history in SQLite. Export a session to a .gritsession file (images included) and replay its prompts in a new project.
• Cross-project memory: full-text search over past sessions, available to the agent through grit_history_search and grit_history_fetch
• Cheap long sessions: compaction only near the context limit, a token-budgeted tail and chained summaries
• Vision: drag screenshots into the message box
• Streaming markdown: headings, tables and code blocks render live
• Native: the Tahoe look on macOS and GTK on Linux, following your dark/light theme. API keys are stored in the OS keyring.

Small on purpose

_{Measured on an Apple Silicon Mac on 14 Sep 2026 (OpenCode 1.18.30). RAM is the macOS physical memory footprint summed over each app's processes, while idle. More at gritcode.ai/compare.}

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/lszl84/gritcode.git && cd gritcode

# Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)
sudo apt install build-essential cmake ninja-build pkg-config \
    libwxgtk3.2-dev libgtk-3-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev \
    libsqlite3-dev libsecret-1-dev
cmake --preset release
cmake --build --preset release
./build/gritcode

# macOS
brew install cmake ninja
cmake --preset release
cmake --build --preset release
open ./build/gritcode.app

On other Linux distributions, install the equivalent development packages for wxWidgets 3.2 (GTK 3), GTK 3, libcurl, SQLite and libsecret. On macOS, wxWidgets is built statically from source, so the .app has no Homebrew dependencies.

API keys

Click the ⚙ gear button in the bottom toolbar to open Settings, then paste your DeepSeek API key (get one here). Keys are stored in the OS keyring: the macOS Keychain or the Linux Secret Service. Kilo Free needs no key.

Support Gritcode

Gritcode is free, open source and built by one developer. If it saves you time:

• ♥ Sponsor the project on GitHub Sponsors
• Support the author on Patreon
• ⭐ Star the repo and tell a friend

License

GPLv3. See LICENSE.