--- title: bb: an IDE where your coding agents work together description: bb is a free, MIT-licensed, open source IDE built around the concept of running multiple coding agents in parallel threads. It addresses the manual... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/bb-an-ide-where-your-coding-agents-work-together-h6km1494m twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: bb: an IDE where your coding agents work together | daily.dev og:description: bb is a free, MIT-licensed, open source IDE built around the concept of running multiple coding agents in parallel threads. It addresses the manual... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/bb-an-ide-where-your-coding-agents-work-together-h6km1494m og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/H6Km1494M.png og:image:alt: bb: an IDE where your coding agents work together og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # bb: an IDE where your coding agents work together **[Flavio Copes](https://daily.dev/sources/flaviocopes)** · 8 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary bb is a free, MIT-licensed, open source IDE built around the concept of running multiple coding agents in parallel threads. It addresses the manual coordination overhead between agents like Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor by making the IDE itself programmable. Work is organized into threads (standard or manager), each optionally running in its own Git worktree. The architecture consists of a server (SQLite-backed), a host daemon, a web UI, and a CLI/SDK that all share the same core — meaning agents and scripts can drive the same actions as a human clicking in the UI. Features include remote host support, plugin extensibility (GitHub integration, agent memory, scheduled jobs), and the ability to trigger threads from shell scripts, cron jobs, or messaging bots. Installed via npx or a macOS desktop app, bb uses existing provider CLI credentials with no additional billing layer. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is bb and how does it let multiple AI coding agents work together? bb is a free, open source, local-first IDE built by Michael Yong where coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Pi, OpenCode, and Grok each run inside 'threads.' Threads can spawn child threads, run in isolated Git worktrees to avoid conflicts, and be coordinated by manager threads, so one agent can supervise several workers on the same repository at once. _See how developers experimenting with multi-agent coding setups like bb surface on daily.dev._ ### How do I run the bb agentic IDE without installing the desktop app? Run npx bb-app@latest and then open http://localhost:38886 in a browser. This works on Intel Macs and Linux; on Windows, run the same npx command inside WSL2. A native desktop app built with Electron is also available but currently limited to macOS on Apple Silicon. _Developers tracking new local-first AI coding tools like bb often follow updates on daily.dev._ ### Does bb require its own subscription to use Claude Code or Codex? No, bb has no billing layer of its own. It detects whichever provider CLIs are already authenticated on the machine, such as Anthropic's or OpenAI's, and runs them directly, so usage is billed through the existing Claude Code or Codex subscription rather than through bb itself. _Anyone comparing agent orchestration tools and their pricing models can keep up via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Baton: Orchestrate your AI coding agents](https://daily.dev/posts/baton-orchestrate-your-ai-coding-agents-hpocupofm) · Product Hunt · 45 upvotes · 2 comments - [KanBots — a kanban that runs parallel agents](https://daily.dev/posts/kanbots-a-kanban-that-runs-parallel-agents-bx3zfygop) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The IDE Is Losing to the Terminal — Coding Agents Made the Difference](https://daily.dev/posts/the-ide-is-losing-to-the-terminal-coding-agents-made-the-difference-4wqtpmdct) · Medium · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#claude-code](https://daily.dev/tags/claude-code) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/bb-an-ide-where-your-coding-agents-work-together-h6km1494m) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"bb: an IDE where your coding agents work together","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/bb-an-ide-where-your-coding-agents-work-together-h6km1494m","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/bb-an-ide-where-your-coding-agents-work-together-h6km1494m"},"datePublished":"2026-08-08T07:36:44.829Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T06:05:12.396Z","description":"bb is a free, MIT-licensed, open source IDE built around the concept of running multiple coding agents in parallel threads. 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