Vibe Mode

Vibe Mode is a native integrated development environment (IDE) designed specifically for AI-assisted coding on macOS. Built from the ground up without relying on Electron or existing code editors, it aims to deliver a fast and lightweight experience, with a download size of 100 MB and idle memory usage under 100 MB. The application is tailored for developers seeking an environment optimized for both performance and AI integration, emphasizing minimal resource consumption and rapid launch times of less than one second.

The platform integrates a native inference engine that allows users to run AI models locally on Apple Silicon, achieving response times between 3 and 20 milliseconds to the first token. This local inference is handled by VibeMLX, a 17 MB Zig binary capable of loading HuggingFace models directly and running on Apple's Metal framework. The inference engine is compiled directly into the app's daemon, eliminating the need for Python runtimes or external dependencies. Users can also access AI models from a broad range of providers, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI, Groq, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, Together, Cerebras, and others, as well as local models via VibeMLX, Ollama, or LM Studio, with no vendor lock-in.

Vibe Mode's Samsara context engine indexes entire projects within milliseconds and maintains semantic continuity across sessions, allowing the AI assistant to understand and reference the full codebase and ongoing conversations. This enables features such as project-wide code understanding, advanced search, and persistent context for discussions and debugging. Security and privacy are prioritized, with API keys stored in the macOS Keychain, local inference that does not transmit code externally, and project-level isolation by design.

The IDE also features a fully integrated, GPU-accelerated Ghostty terminal emulator, natively embedded within the application rather than as a subprocess. Vibe Mode includes a custom implementation of Jinja2 templating in Zig for native speed and compatibility. The tool is currently available as a private beta for macOS users, with access managed via a waitlist. Vibe Mode is developed by gremlinlabs.