{"slug": "show-hn-vim-like-tui-agent-complete-tasks-in-20-80k-tokens-instead-of-300k", "title": "Show HN: Vim-like TUI agent, complete tasks in 20–80k tokens instead of 300k+", "summary": "A developer released My Shell, a Vim-keybinding terminal agent that completes full tasks in 20–80k tokens instead of the 300k+ prefill tokens typical of most agent sessions, according to the project's Show HN post. My Shell uses local-first compaction to keep context on the user's machine, supports on-demand subagents with isolated contexts and thread pooling for parallel runs, and ships as a single bundle with no external packages. It runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows, in Docker, in PowerShell with full rendering and keybindings, and in VGA/VESA framebuffer mode without a terminal emulator; a web chat and a wgpu desktop app are also offered or planned.", "body_md": "A terminal agent for people who want agentic workflows without the token bills.\n\nMost agent sessions burn 300k+ prefill tokens. My Shell is built around small contexts: local-first compaction can complete a full task in 20–80k tokens.\n\nSmall contexts also make parallelism affordable - run multiple agents at once; thread pooling keeps each session lean without cost compounding.\n\nIt runs anywhere: macOS, Linux, and Windows, in Docker, and even in VGA/VESA framebuffer mode with no terminal emulator. It runs natively in PowerShell with full rendering and keybindings, no degraded experience.\n\n• Vim keybindings throughout\n\n• Markdown and LaTeX rendering in the terminal\n\n• On-demand subagents with isolated contexts\n\n• Compaction runs locally — your context stays on your machine\n\n• Single bundle, no external packages required\n\nIt's opinionated: terminal-first, no chat UI, Vim keys. If that's not you, there's also a web chat with your name on it (and a fresh wgpu desktop app, coming soon™).\n\nComments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49746030](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49746030)\n\nPoints: 1\n\n# Comments: 0", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-vim-like-tui-agent-complete-tasks-in-20-80k-tokens-instead-of-300k", "canonical_source": "https://easiest.ai/", "published_at": "2026-09-17 20:26:06+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-17 20:55:56.269923+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-tools", "developer-tools", "ai-products"], "entities": ["My Shell", "Show HN", "Hacker News", "macOS", "Linux", "Windows", "Docker", "PowerShell"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-vim-like-tui-agent-complete-tasks-in-20-80k-tokens-instead-of-300k", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-vim-like-tui-agent-complete-tasks-in-20-80k-tokens-instead-of-300k.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-vim-like-tui-agent-complete-tasks-in-20-80k-tokens-instead-of-300k.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-vim-like-tui-agent-complete-tasks-in-20-80k-tokens-instead-of-300k.jsonld"}}