Engrams is a self-hosted orchestrator for AI coding agents that runs each agent inside its own Firecracker microVM, snapshots the VM when it goes idle, and restores it on demand. Sessions are built as plain OCI images plus a small harness; once enabled, the system boots images on hosts in a user’s cloud, streams transcripts and tool calls to a dashboard, Slack or CLI, and enforces strong isolation with KVM and host-side outbound filtering. Key selling points are full control of data and keys (everything stays in your account), aggressive deduplication of disk and memory via hash-keyed chunks, near-instant restore times (sub-100 ms on the same host, a second or two across hosts), and built-in product features - dashboard, CLI, connectors, automations, and task pipelines - so it behaves like an integrated sandbox product you operate yourself.
The architecture splits product surface and scheduling from execution: an orchestrator handles users, integrations and automation, a coordinator schedules sessions and evicts idle VMs, and many host agents dial in to run VMs. Storage uses content-addressed blobs with lazy paging (NBD + userfaultfd) so snapshots only write changed chunks and base images are stored once across sessions. Deployment targets Kubernetes with Terraform and Helm for production; a single-machine dev flow supports macOS virtualization or Firecracker on Linux. It supports Claude Code and Codex harnesses, isn’t a hosted service or model provider, and is a 0.x project running production at one company.
Summary generated by AI from the linked article. hn.today is not affiliated with Hacker News or Y Combinator.
Zig 0.17.0 introduces a reworked build system, including a new Build Server Protocol and enhanced ELF Linker for better incremental compilation on x86_64-linux. The release also features numerous language, standard library, and package management improvements contributed by over 200 developers. (ziglang.org)
Decreasing costs of native app development and performance optimization shift the software bottleneck from coding to deployment and maintenance. Experts argue that while technology enables faster coding, managing and shipping updates remains a significant challenge. (jardo.dev)
The Partner-N64PC development kit for the Nintendo 64 was created by Kyoto Microcomputer and includes real-time debugging features. It requires a specially modified N64 console to control game pausing and resets for debugging during gameplay. (behindthecode.ca)
Codeset offers a 'Mystery Function' as part of its programming courses and tests. The platform provides free credits for users to explore its learning resources. (codeset.ai)
Agentic coding, driven by large language models, leads to sloppy, incomprehensible code and diminishes human involvement in the development process. This shift causes engineers to feel alienated from their work and less invested in maintaining code quality. (distantprovince.substack.com)
Bise is a multi-agent development harness designed to streamline coding workflows by managing multiple agents under a single team lead. It allows users to focus on ideas while agents handle tasks, communication, and project organization automatically. (bise.dev)
Today's best Hacker News stories, summarized and screenshotted, one email a day.