Lightcode

A lightweight terminal coding agent written in Go

What is Lightcode?

Lightcode is a terminal-based coding agent for developers. It connects to any OpenAI-compatible model provider.

Features

• OpenAI-compatible — works with any provider that speaks the OpenAI Chat Completions API (OpenAI, Anthropic via proxy, Ollama, LM Studio, etc.)
• Low memory usage — uses less ram around 20-30 mb
• Skills — uses specialized agent-skills.
• Multi-model support — configure multiple providers and switch between models with /models inside the TUI

Requirements

• Go 1.25+
• At least one OpenAI-compatible endpoint configured

Install

go install github.com/Kartik-2239/lightcode/cmd/lightcode@latest

Quick Start

Run the TUI and API server together (defaults to :8080):

lightcode

Or run directly from source:

go run ./cmd/lightcode/main.go

On first run, Lightcode creates ~/.lightcode/ with a default config.json. Add your model provider details (see Configuration) and you're ready to go.

Configuration

All settings live under ~/.lightcode/config.json. The file is created automatically on first run.

Full example

{
  "theme": "light",
  "skills_path": "~/.lightcode/skills",
  "port": "8080",
  "providers": [
    {
      "models": ["gpt-5.5"],
      "base_url": "https://api.openai.com/v1",
      "api_key": "sk-..."
    },
    {
      "models": ["some-ai-800b"],
      "base_url": "https://your-gateway.example/v1",
      "api_key": "your-api-key"
    }
  ]
}

Config reference

Providers

Each entry in the providers array requires:

Once configured, run /models inside the TUI to select your active model.

Skills

Skills give the agent domain-specific context and significantly improve response quality for specialized tasks.

To add a skill:

1. Create a subdirectory under ~/.lightcode/skills/
2. Add a SKILL.md file inside it describing the context or instructions

~/.lightcode/skills/
├── golang/
│   └── SKILL.md
└── docker/
    └── SKILL.md

You can also point skills_path in config.json to any other directory on your system.