# I built a free, BYOK AI coding agent IDE that runs fully offline on local LLMs

> Source: <https://dev.to/cuculhart/i-built-a-free-byok-ai-coding-agent-ide-that-runs-fully-offline-on-local-llms-4bdb>
> Published: 2026-09-23 08:33:21+00:00

I built **Forger**, a standalone Electron app that bundles a file

explorer, Monaco editor, AI chat, Git, and a real TTY terminal into one

window — with an agent loop that lists, reads, searches, and edits

files across multiple steps, all behind approval dialogs.

Repo: [https://github.com/cuculhart/forger-ide](https://github.com/cuculhart/forger-ide)

Setup guide: [https://cuculhart.com/forger-howto.en.html](https://cuculhart.com/forger-howto.en.html)

Not a VS Code fork, not an extension — a single exe.

## 
  
  
  Why I built it

Doing contract work, I kept hitting the same walls:

- 
**Confidential code can't go to vendor clouds.** In contract work you
handle code and engineering knowledge that simply may not pass
through someone else's servers.
- 
**Orgs that can't approve $20/mo subscriptions.** There are still
plenty of organizations where a monthly AI IDE subscription is a
hard sell.
- 
**VS Code extension agents get tangled.** Extensions are convenient,
but they also collide with each other — Copilot interference being
the usual suspect.
- 
**Unapproved rewrites are a review burden.** When the AI silently
rewrites code, the human reviewer pays the cognitive cost. So every
write, diff edit, and command goes through an approval dialog, and
checkpoint/rollback undoes only the AI's changes.
- 
**Docker-in-Docker tools are heavy.** Nice, but a hard setup for
beginners. I wanted a single exe that just runs.
- 
**Beginners need visible panes.** Explorer, editor, console, and AI
chat as separate, obvious panes is simply easier to learn.

Nothing matched all of this — so I built it, with AI, in under 3 days.

## 
  
  
  Features

- 
**Free + BYOK** — bring your own Gemini API key, pay Google directly
for what you use. No subscription, no markup.
- 
**Fully offline option** — point it at Ollama (Gemma, Qwen, ...) and
every request goes to localhost only. Your code never leaves the
machine.
- 
**No telemetry** — the only network calls go to the LLM endpoint you
configure. Source-available, so you can verify that yourself.
- 
**Human-in-the-loop** — writes are confined to the project root;
file creation, diff edits, and shell commands all require approval.
- 
**LiteLLM proxy support** — real API keys never sit on the client.
- 
**Token-efficient context** — the AI gets the file tree and fetches
contents on demand via`// GREP:` /`// READ_FILE:` commands.
- 
**Cheap by default** — Gemini 3.8 Flash is at introductory pricing
(half the standard rate) through the end of 2026, and even cheaper
models like 3.5 Flash-Lite are selectable.

## 
  
  
  Tech stack

Electron / React / TypeScript / Monaco Editor / Gemini API & Ollama /

Vite

## 
  
  
  License

FSL-1.1-MIT (source-available). Free to use, modify, fork, and

redistribute for any non-competing purpose — including commercial work

inside your company. The one restriction: you can't sell it (or a

renamed clone) as a competing product. Each release automatically

converts to MIT two years after publication.

## 
  
  
  Honest limitations

It's chat/agent-centric (no inline completions), there's no codebase

index (tree + on-demand reads instead), editor tabs don't exist yet,

and it's Windows-first with the UI in English/Japanese.

## 
  
  
  Roadmap

Considering PDF/image recognition, making the agent loop more reliable

on small local models, and chat improvements (multiple chat tabs).

Feedback and bug reports welcome via

[GitHub Issues](https://github.com/cuculhart/forger-ide/issues).