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title: jcode (Fully Tested) + Free APIs: RIP Codex & Claude, I...
description: Jcode is a new open-source AI coding agent harness written in Rust, gaining over 11,000 GitHub stars. It stands out for its extremely low memory footprint (28...
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# jcode (Fully Tested) + Free APIs: RIP Codex & Claude, I THINK I'LL SWITCH! IT'S CRAZY GOOD!

**[AICodeKing](https://daily.dev/sources/aicodeking)** · 7 min read · 2 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

Jcode is a new open-source AI coding agent harness written in Rust, gaining over 11,000 GitHub stars. It stands out for its extremely low memory footprint (28 MB baseline), fast boot time (14ms), built-in vector-based agent memory with semantic search, swarm mode for running multiple agents in parallel with automatic conflict handling, and built-in Firefox browser automation. It supports a wide range of LLM providers including Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Deepseek, and local runtimes like Ollama. Installation is straightforward via a single curl command, and it offers both interactive TUI and non-interactive scripting modes. It can also resume sessions from other tools like Claude Code and Codex, making migration easy.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC8NMSS5Nac>

## Questions this post answers

### What is jcode and how does it compare to Claude Code or Aider in memory usage?

Jcode is an open-source, MIT-licensed AI coding agent harness written in Rust with over 11,000 GitHub stars. It uses roughly 28 MB of RAM at baseline compared to 140-400 MB for competing harnesses, boots in about 14 milliseconds (27-245 times faster), and adds only about 10 MB per extra parallel session versus 76-300+ MB for other tools.

_Developers comparing lightweight agent harnesses can track new entrants like jcode on daily.dev._

### How does jcode's built-in memory system work for AI coding agents?

Jcode uses vector embeddings and semantic search to automatically recall context from past sessions, with passive retrieval that pulls relevant memories into the conversation without requiring tool calls. Active memory tools let the agent manually search or store information, and background processes handle automatic consolidation and staleness checking so the agent improves its codebase knowledge over time.

_Anyone weighing agent memory features against tools like Claude Code can follow these developments on daily.dev._

### How do I install jcode on Mac, Linux, or Windows?

On Mac or Linux, run the install script via curl piped into bash from jcode.sh, or use Homebrew by tapping the jcode repository and running brew install jcode. On Windows, a PowerShell command runs an equivalent install script from jcode.sh. Since it is open source, it can also be built from source using Cargo.

_Developers evaluating new Rust-based dev tooling can keep tabs on setup changes via daily.dev._

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- [OpenCode: The Open Source Coding Agent That Doesn't Lock You In](https://daily.dev/posts/opencode-the-open-source-coding-agent-that-doesn-t-lock-you-in-yrji1qwkf) · Playful Programming · 2 upvotes · 2 comments
- [Codex is now the recommended agent in JetBrains IDEs](https://daily.dev/posts/codex-is-now-the-recommended-agent-in-jetbrains-ides-q3gxvk24g) · JetBrains · 1 upvotes · 0 comments

---

Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#rust](https://daily.dev/tags/rust)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/jcode-fully-tested-free-apis-rip-codex-claude-i-think-i-ll-switch-it-s-crazy-good--x0vlaopjj)

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