Rustic
Open source · Pure Rust · Tauri 2 · Windows, macOS & Linux
Rustic pairs a fast, VS Code–style editing surface with a first-class AI agent that can read your whole workspace — with every change captured as a revertible checkpoint.
1use axum::{Router, routing::get};
2
3/// Boots the API and serves on $PORT.
4#[tokio::main]
5async fn main() {
6 let app = Router::new()
7 .route("/healthz", get(|| async { "ok" }))
8 .layer(auth::require_bearer());
9 axum::serve(listener, app).await.unwrap();10}01 — The editor
A real IDE surface — not a chat window with a file picker bolted on.
Read, edit, create and move files. Run commands in background PTYs it can poll. Fetch and search the web. Generate images and video. Every tool runs behind a Chat / Edit / Auto permission model — you decide how much rope it gets.
Every turn snapshots the whole project into a gix shadow repo. One click reverts files and the chat to any earlier point.
ConPTY / portable-pty backed, grid and split layouts, scrollback that survives remounts. The agent sees the same terminals you do.
The same editor core as VS Code, with tree-sitter highlighting and previews for Markdown, images, PDF, docx, xlsx and notebooks.
Reusable instruction bundles and saved playbooks, installable from GitHub. Mention files and live terminals with @; invoke skills inline with /.
API keys live in the OS keychain. The frontend only ever sees a sentinel; the Rust backend resolves the real secret.
Embedded Chromium with DevTools access: click, type, fill forms, read the console, inspect network requests, take screenshots, run Lighthouse. It verifies its own UI work instead of guessing.
Pin a goal and the agent keeps working toward it. Context auto-condenses before it overflows, a live capsule shows how full the window is, and cost tracking with budget ceilings stops a runaway task before your bill does.
Open several repos at once. Global search, git status, diffs and history — all pure Rust via gix, no C toolchain required.
02 — Orchestration
Rustic treats agents as first-class citizens — its own, and everyone else's.
Delegate read-only exploration, research, or a self-contained chunk. Children return a summary; the host keeps the full picture. Concurrent writes go through a 3-way merge guard so parallel edits never clobber each other.
Run several top-level tasks at once. Agents can see who else is live, what files they've written, and message each other to claim or yield an area.
Claude Code, Codex and Antigravity run as chats inside Rustic with hidden PTYs — same panel, same project, same terminals.
Claude Code
Codex
Antigravity
A fragmented project memory the agent reads at task start and writes back at the end — conventions, gotchas, decisions — so it stops repeating itself.
03 — Rustic Server
rustic-server runs the exact same Rust core as the desktop app — headless, on a box you own — and serves Rustic to any browser. Start a task from your desk, check on it from the train, approve the fix from your phone.
Start npm run dev and a Cloudflare quick-tunnel opens for that port automatically — tap the link on your phone. Stop the server and the tunnel is reaped.
Headless Chromium next to your code, so localhost:3000 and OAuth redirects just work. Streamed to you with full DevTools — and zero processes when it's closed.
Point a GitHub webhook at your server: new issues spawn a fixer task, comments answer its questions, and the fix lands as a local commit — never pushed without you.
Push your whole environment — projects, chats, settings — to the server and pull it back down anywhere. Chunked, parallel, resumable transfers.
Password login with HMAC-signed sessions and per-IP rate limiting. Path guards block system dirs and credentials. One Power button logs every device out.
Rust binary, web UI, git, node/npx and uv/uvx for MCP, plus Go, Rust, Bun and TypeScript toolchains. Caddy handles HTTPS. Git in the terminal is pre-authed to GitHub.
$ git clone https://github.com/avijitbhuin21/Rustic && cd Rustic
$ cp .env.example .env # set RUSTIC_AUTH_PASSWORD + RUSTIC_DOMAIN
$ docker compose up -d --build
✔ Container rustic-server Started
✔ Container caddy Started https://rustic.example.comOne click on Railway gives you a box with a persistent volume, a public HTTPS domain and a freshly generated login password. Or self-host on any Linux VM with Docker, or behind Tailscale. Bring your own keys — they stay on your server.
04 — Pricing
Rustic is free to download and the source is on GitHub. Bring your own API keys — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, OpenRouter, or a local OpenAI-compatible server. No accounts. No middleman.