IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Mitos editor is a fork of Helix

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Fork motivation: Helix’s perceived stagnation and missing features
- “They allude it at the end by talking about faster iteration but the real, legitimate reason to fork Helix is that it is essentially inactive at this point … The last release was in July 2025.” – nylonstrung
- “Oh interesting, I went to look more after you said that and noticed the lack of activity indeed, there's even a discussion about it: …” – hmokiguess
- “Helix has a plugin system in the works, but unsure when it’ll actually land.” – notnmeyer
- “I believe I’ve heard many users requesting a plug‑in system … and that the devs themselves considered many features as more appropriate for plugins than first‑party support.” – setopt

2. Opinions on Helix/TUIs versus other editors
- “Helix was originally meant to be a 'batteries included' editor without any scripting/plugins.” – evanjrowley
- “It’s too bad nano doesn’t support LSP … it makes it trivial to get IDE‑level support for almost all programming languages with one simple JSON‑RPC integration.” – schrodinger
- “Why are we building big TUIs at all? … Isn’t it pretty trivial to make your Rust GUI native across the three major operating systems these days?” – bbor
- “It's a lot easier to write and customize tuis. And it works over ssh. The appeal is probably that it's good, performant, functioning software.” – redrobein

3. Rise of AI‑agent workflows reducing the need for traditional editors
- “I don't even read code anymore. I just have my agent deploy directly to production.” – sumnole
- “I don't even have a prod environment anymore. I route any incoming traffic directly to my LLM on Openrouter and let it answer.” – stephbook
- “I don't even deploy anymore, I just proxy the user credit card directly to my API Key on someone else's provider.” – hmokiguess
- “They literally wrote an article about giving up on code reviews because they push 30k changes… they claim to just review the intent of the PR and presume correctness will be caught by more AI.” – schrodinger
- “I don't even sed anymore. I go directly to ed while characters stream out of an llm.” – incognito124

🚀 Project Ideas

Helix Plugin Runtime (WASM)

Summary

  • Adds a sandboxed plugin system to Helix/Mitos using WebAssembly, letting users install language‑specific tools, diff viewers, Vim mode keybindings, and image viewers without waiting for core releases.
  • Core value proposition: Enables rapid community‑driven feature extension while preserving Helix’s “batteries‑included” ethos and keeping the editor lightweight.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Helix/Mitos power users who want custom features (plugin developers, daily drivers)
Core Feature WASM plugin API with host bindings for buffer access, LSP integration, and key‑map extension
Tech Stack Rust (Helix core), wasmtime as host, wit‑bindgen for ABI, optional Lua/WASM shim
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • HN users lamented the lack of a plug‑in system: “setopt: I’ve heard many users requesting a plug‑in system…” and “joefreeman: …building my own personal editor… being able to deeply customise has been satisfying.”
  • A plug‑in runtime would let the community experiment with diff viewers, Vim‑mode keymaps, or external image viewers, addressing multiple pain points in one extensible layer.

TermDiff: TUI Diff Viewer

Summary

  • A standalone terminal‑based diff viewer that can be launched from Helix/Mitos via a keybinding, showing side‑by‑side or unified diffs with scrolling and syntax highlighting.
  • Core value proposition: Provides a fast, keyboard‑driven diff experience without spawning heavyweight GUI processes, solving the “buggy lazygit swap” complaint.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers who use Helix/Mitos and need quick code reviews or conflict resolution
Core Feature Render git diffs, file‑vs‑file, or buffer‑vs‑buffer with mouse‑free navigation and syntax highlighting
- Tech Stack Rust, crossterm or ratatui, syntect for highlighting, optional git2 crate
Difficulty Low
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • jswelker noted: “I was wishing for a good diff viewer. Yes I can create a shortcut to lazygit but the way swapping between processes worked was buggy and uncomfortable.” TermDiff would give a native TUI alternative.
  • Because it’s a separate binary, it can be reused outside Helix (e.g., from vim, neovim, or shell) and would earn discussion on HN as a useful companion tool.

NativeLSP Editor: Lightweight Cross‑Platform GUI

Summary

  • A minimal GUI editor built with a native UI framework (SwiftUI/macOS, GTK/Linux, WinUI/Windows) that delegates all language smarts to an LSP server, offering optional Vim‑mode keybindings and a plugin‑free core.
  • Core value proposition: Delivers a responsive, low‑bloat editing experience that feels like a native app while retaining the power of LSP‑based features, addressing the desire for a GUI alternative to heavy TUIs.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers who prefer native GUI apps but still want LSP‑driven intelligence (e.g., Helix users considering a switch)
Core Feature Native window, tabs, and panels with LSP integration; optional Vim‑mode keymap; configurable keybindings
Tech Stack Rust backend (LSP client) + Tauri (or separate SwiftUI/GTK/WPF frontends) – alternatively Flutter/Dart with platform channels
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • bbor questioned: “why are we building big TUIs at all?… I prefer a TUI to a heavy Electron app, don’t get me but Helix (& Mitos!) seem like a baffling choice compared to Sublime Text.” A native GUI editor would answer that critique.
  • jswelker’s wish to “just switch to vim mode” could be satisfied by the optional Vim‑mode keymap, giving HN commenters a familiar editing feel without leaving a GUI environment.

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