The AI-native, hackable, Notepad++-powered code editor for macOS — a Code-OSS fork.
levelcode.ai · MIT-licensed · not affiliated with Microsoft
LevelCode stands on the same battle-tested Monaco / Code-OSS core behind VS Code and bends it into a fast, private editor that's yours: a first-class AI layer that talks directly to whatever model provider you choose (your own key, or a local model — no middle-man backend), Notepad++ power-editing, and the old Atom "everything is hackable" soul.
Get the latest .dmg from levelcode.ai/download — Apple Silicon or Intel — open it, and drag LevelCode to Applications. (Direct links: Apple Silicon · Intel · all releases.)
Signed + notarized builds open with a plain double-click. If you're on an early unsigned build and macOS blocks first launch, right-click the app → Open (once), or run
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/LevelCode.app".
Prefer to build it yourself? See Quick start.
🤖 Native AI — bring your own key, any provider. Chat with your codebase, inline tab-completion, select-and-edit as a reviewable diff, and an autonomous agent that plans, edits across files, runs commands, and verifies its own work (apply-then-review with Keep / Undo + per-turn checkpoints). One provider registry + one OpenAI-compatible adapter unlocks hundreds of models: Anthropic Claude (native), OpenAI, OpenRouter, Groq, Together, Fireworks, DeepSeek, xAI, Mistral, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, and local Ollama. Requests go straight from your machine to the provider — no LevelCode server in the middle — and keys live in your OS keychain, never synced.
⚡ Notepad++ power-editing. Keystroke macros (record / replay), column-mode quality-of-life, line operations (sort / dedup / case), one-click encoding & line-ending controls always visible in the status bar, a read-optimized big-file mode, duplicate-file, and Sublime-style hot exit.
🛠 Hackable — the Atom soul. A user init script, live config, package authoring with hot-reload, keymap presets (Atom / Notepad++ / Sublime muscle memory), and signature One Dark / One Light themes.
🔄 Yours across machines. Built-in Settings Sync, notify-only update checks, and one-click import from VS Code / VSCodium / Cursor (settings, keybindings, snippets).
LevelCode is a clean overlay on top of Code-OSS, not a vendored copy of the editor source — so it rebases cleanly onto new upstream releases. scripts/bootstrap.sh fetches Code-OSS at a pinned tag and turns it into LevelCode. This repo holds:
extensions/— the first-party extensions (native AI, Notepad++ pack, themes, hackability, sync, updater), plain JS with no build step.branding/— the LevelCode identity (product.overlay.json) + icons, deep-merged onto upstreamproduct.json; the extension gallery wired to Open VSX.modules/— what ships in the app outside an extension: the Open VSX signature verifier and the signing keys it trusts.patches/— the small set of core source patches (each tagged// [LevelCode]).scripts/— bootstrap / run-dev / build / dmg / icon, andbuild-web.mjs(LevelCode in a browser tab).web/— LevelCode in your browser: the same workbench and AI extension as a static site you can host; sign in with a LevelCode account or use your own key. Seedocs/WEB.md.tools/— dependency-free reference servers (Settings-Sync feed, update feed).PLAN.md,docs/,CLAUDE.md— the vision, roadmap, and repo map.
# Prereqs: Xcode Command Line Tools, Node (see vscode/.nvmrc — currently 24.x), Python 3.8+.
./scripts/bootstrap.sh # clone Code-OSS @ pinned tag, brand it, install extensions, npm ci
./scripts/run-dev.sh # launch LevelCode from source (fast iteration)
./scripts/build-macos.sh # produce LevelCode.app
./scripts/make-dmg.sh # wrap it into a distributable .dmgA run from source is its own app. run-dev.sh gives the dev editor its own macOS identity — bundle id ai.levelcode.app.dev and the levelcode-dev:// scheme (branding/product.dev.json) — so it can sit beside an installed LevelCode without the two answering each other's links. Signing in from it needs a server that accepts that scheme: set LEVELCODE_EXTRA_EDITOR_SCHEMES=levelcode-dev on the backend it signs in to. No server accepts it otherwise, and a sign-in that ends on the account page in the browser, with the editor hearing nothing, is the sign that it is not set.
See CLAUDE.md for the full repo map + build details and PLAN.md for the roadmap.
Actively built, macOS-first. Working today: the Notepad++ power-editing pack; the full native AI stack (chat, inline completion, edit-with-diff, the agent + auto-verify, and multi-provider BYOK); One Dark / One Light themes; the hackability layer; Settings Sync; and the update checker. Milestone detail and what's next live in PLAN.md.
Code-OSS is MIT-licensed and free to fork, modify, and ship. LevelCode honors the constraints every forker must: the Microsoft Extension Marketplace is Microsoft-products-only, so LevelCode points its gallery at Open VSX (the Eclipse-run open marketplace) — and checks every extension it installs or updates against Open VSX's signature, with the signing key pinned in the app rather than fetched (how, and what that does and does not prove); and LevelCode ships its own name, icon, and identity. It is not produced by, endorsed by, or affiliated with Microsoft, and the upstream Code-OSS source is fetched at build time — never redistributed in this repository.
MIT — see LICENSE. A derivative of Code-OSS (MIT, © Microsoft Corporation); see NOTICE for attributions. Not affiliated with Microsoft.