Yesterday, Cursor was acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion.
I've been building a free, local-first AI IDE for 7 months. Alone.
No VC money. No team. No MIT network.
This is that story.
Why I built PunamIDE
Most AI IDEs are built around one idea: code faster.
PunamIDE is built around a different idea: don't let AI break
your codebase.
After watching AI agents silently overwrite files, ignore merge
conflicts, run dangerous shell commands, and hallucinate
architecture decisions — I wanted an IDE where AI is powerful
but never unsupervised.
What makes it different
Native Snapshots — Before any AI edit, you can snapshot your
project. Named reasons: "Before AI Edit", "Before Refactor",
"Before Debugger". node_modules and dist are automatically
excluded. One click to restore.
AgentApplyGuard — Every change an AI agent proposes goes
through validation before touching your code. You see exactly
what changes, what files, what risk.
Architecture Rules Engine — A visual drag-and-drop interface
where you define layer constraints. "services CANNOT import from
ui". The IDE enforces it. No more AI casually breaking your
architectural boundaries.
Technical Debt Intelligence — AST-based analysis using
Tree-sitter. Cyclomatic complexity scoring, god class detection,
dependency cycle detection, refactor queue with time estimates.
Built in. No plugins.
3-way merge — AI can never silently overwrite your edits.
Conflict markers are generated. You stay in control.
$0 to run — Supports Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, Ollama.
All free tiers. No subscription. No cloud lock-in.
Everything runs locally.
The stack
Built on Tauri 2 + Rust + React 19 + TypeScript.
The binary is ~15MB. Electron apps are ~200MB.
Rust handles everything heavy: filesystem, git, LSP, DAP,
PTY, AI API calls, indexing, snapshots, security validation.
The name
Punam means "full moon" in Hindi.
I named it after my late mother.
She taught me that real work is done with care, not shortcuts.
That's what I tried to build — an IDE that doesn't cut corners
on your safety.
Where it is today
- Windows alpha (v2.0.0 released)
- 105 Rust backend tests passing
- 60+ UI components
- LSP, DAP debugger, Git, GitHub integration, Docker panel, CI/CD monitoring, RAG workbench, multi-agent orchestration
I'm looking for 5-10 developers willing to try it and give
honest feedback. Not looking for hype — looking for real usage.
Website: https://punamide.com
Download: https://github.com/punamide/punamide-downloads/releases
Discord: https://discord.gg/PFp9KWY3eY
If you try it — thank you. Every piece of feedback matters.
