This started as an exploration into harnesses and locally hostable LLMs (the kind that uses less power than a small electric heater), and I used it as an opportunity to retool. I've tried popular ones like Cline, Claude Code, and Pi, but wanted a different UX and integrated sandboxes.
The solution that I've landed on is a responsive web interface where I can quickly drive progress. It feels like a microcosm of my day job: define and delegate tasks, organize using kanban, then review deliverables. And it also feels like the time I used to spend coding is now spent in code review with the agent, so I tried to optimize the UX to make review feel nicer.
One of my (maybe a bit niche) benchmark use-cases is how pleasant it is to make progress on hobby software projects while also out on a hike. This meant specifying low bandwidth usage and offline mode.
Now I can jot down an idea, start the task, and at some point down the trail: get a notification* that either clarification is needed, a decision needs to be made, or the code is ready for review. I've been having a good time with this.
To build MIKE, I exclusively used locally hostable LLMs (from Google, Meta, Qwen, Poolside, and DeepSeek) hosted with llama.cpp on my machines at home (Strix Halo and a 5090) to "compile" the code. The experience has gotten substantially better ever since DeepSeek’s release in July. Side note: I have a soft spot for llama.cpp since it was one of the first that made it possible to run this new tech at home, and its maintainers accepted a tiny improvement I made to error reporting. Oh the joys of having a PR get approved.
I plan on maintaining this, at least until similar features are supported by better tools. Until then, hope you find this useful!
5 minute demo: https://youtu.be/jexzLkZ50FU
p.s.
I didn't mention details about the sandbox earlier since most people seem to find this a bit boring. It was one of my critical requirements, and I opted to use an existing battle-tested sandbox. I'm not an expert on how the Linux kernel works, but seeing all the VM escape exploits recently is a bit scary, and I liked gVisor’s approach to the problem.
I'm also using Git worktrees to provision the agent’s workspace, as well as a read-only repository mount to provide relevant context when the agent looks for it.
*off by default