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AI · alternatives · 2026

IF

24 alternatives to I forced Claude to play Tetris in Emacs

The point of this seemingly useless exercise was to stress-test my elisp-eval MCP https://github.com/agzam/death-contraptions/tree/main/tools/... AI hands it a string of Lisp, it runs inside live Emacs session, poking into it via emacsclient. Behaves like a REPL the LLM can drive - state persists between the calls. Emacs is a Lisp machine. Buffers, files, network, subprocesses, games, major modes, the UI itself: every feature is already an elisp function. Hand an LLM a way to run arbitrary elisp and it inherits the entire Emacs API for free. No…

This project demonstrates an elisp-eval MCP (model context protocol) that allows AI language models to execute Lisp code within a live Emacs session via emacsclient. The tool functions as a persistent REPL where state… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

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    This is a little game implemented over a week of tinkering and targeting Emacs. The point is both to have fun with this kind of simulations, and also explore the "functional core / imperative shell" approach to architecture. I also developed a tile and tile effect definition DSL, which makes this even easier to extend. From this point of view it's a success: easy testing, easy extension, Gameplay-wise the simulation is too simplistic, and needs input from people interested in this kind of toys. The original Micropolis/SimSity is the last time I built a virtual city.

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2IW

    The book page links to a blog post that explains how I got about it (and has a link to sample content), but the TL&DR is that I could not find a lot of books that were on "our" history _and_ were larded with technical details. So I set about writing one, and some five years later I'm happy to share the result. I think it's one of the few "computer history" books that has tons of code, but correct me if I'm wrong (I wrote this both to tell a story and to learn :-)). My favorite languages are Smalltalk and Lisp, but as an Emacs user, I've been using the latter for much longer and for my…

    Feb 2026 · berksoft.ca · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    I created this because sometimes I want more than rlwrap but less than emacs. icl aims to hit that middle sweet spot. It's a terminal application with context-aware auto-complete, an interactive object inspector, auto-indentation, syntax colouring, persistent history, and much more. It uses sly to communicate with the child lisp process and aims to be compatible with any sly-supporting implementation. I hope others find it useful!

    Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    Hi HN! Ever wish you could just point your AI assistant at your terminal and say 'what's wrong with this output?' That's why I built iterm-mcp. It lets MCP clients like Claude Desktop directly interact with your iTerm2 terminal - reading logs, running commands, using REPLs, and helping debug issues. Want to explore data or debug using a REPL? The AI can start the REPL, run commands, and help interpret the results. This is an MCP server that integrates with Claude Desktop, LibreChat, and other Model Context Protocol compatible clients.…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    I got tired of sharing AI demos with terminal screenshots or screen recordings. Claude Code already stores full session transcripts locally as JSONL files. Those logs contain everything: prompts, tool calls, thinking blocks, and timestamps. I built a small CLI tool that converts those logs into an interactive HTML replay. You can step through the session, jump through the timeline, expand tool calls, and inspect the full conversation. The output is a single self-contained HTML file — no dependencies. You can email it, host it anywhere, embed it in a blog post, and it works on mobile. Repo:…

    Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    A tiny DIY kit to set up vanilla Emacs for Common Lisp programming - susam/emacs4cl

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    FUSE filesystems in Emacs Lisp. Contribute to vkazanov/elfuse development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Hey HN, Small OSS project that i created for myself and want to share with the community. It's a declarative, scriptable, terminal-based IDE focussed on agentic engineering. That's a lot of jargon, but essentially its a multi-agent IDE that you start in your terminal. Why is that relevant? Thanks to tmux and SSH, it means that you have a really simple and efficient way to create your own always-on coding setup. Boot into your IDE through ssh, give a prompt to claude and close off your machine. In tmux-ide claude will keep working. The tool is intentionally really lightweight, because I think…

    Mar 2026 · tmux.thijsverreck.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Tired of AI coding tools that forget everything between sessions? Every time I open a new chat with Claude or fire up Copilot, I'm back to square one explaining my codebase structure. So I built something to fix this. It's called In Memoria. Its an MCP server that gives AI tools persistent memory. Instead of starting fresh every conversation, the AI remembers your coding patterns, architectural decisions, and all the context you've built up. The setup is dead simple: `npx in-memoria server` then connect your AI tool. No accounts, no data leaves your machine. Under the hood it's TypeScript +…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Hi HN. I am a programmer from Japan who loves Emacs. I am building elecxzy. It is a free (zero-cost), lightweight, Emacs-like text editor for Windows. I designed it to be comfortable and ready to use immediately, without a custom init.el. Here is a quick overview: - Provides mouse-free operation and classic Emacs keybindings for essential tasks (file I/O, search, split windows, syntax highlighting). - Drops the Lisp execution engine entirely. This keeps startup and operation lightweight. - Solves CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) IME control issues natively on Windows. I never managed to…

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Hi! My name is Herve Kom, a computer science student that is interested in learning new things everyday! As one of my graduation project, I have developed a Claude Code -like Coding CLI, but with enhancement for API Testing: - Auto-generate & run tests (unit, e2e, Playwright, CI/CD, etc.) - Say bye-bye to hallucinations with built-in MCP Server to let LLM directly read from API Docs - Adding Agent.md support for better context persistence across your whole codebase - Automatic bug & security scans (logic is kind of basic but works great!) - Vibes, I want it to feel less "enterprise" but…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    We built a Rust MCP server, which wraps the excellent headless terminal (HT)[1] to makes it available for agentic coding tools. Most agentic coding tools struggle with blocking, interactive terminal tools (all the boilerplate generator, infra CLI tools etc). This is because many existing CLI dev tools are built for humans and require interactive input. We built this so agentic coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Memex, etc) can “see” and “interact” with terminals exactly like humans do. In our demo video [2], you'll see it operating vim/emacs just as a human would - selecting options,…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

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  14. 14

    Lisp-inspired interactive REPL editor tools for Javascript

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    A NES Emulator written in Emacs Lisp. Contribute to gongo/emacs-nes development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    Cause "You're absolutely right" is probably absolutely wrong

    Apr 2026 · npmjs.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    A simple CLI that transforms your code into clean, structured text for feeding into LLMs. - NoahCristino/llmcat

    Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    I recently encountered a situation where JetBrains IDEs weren't working for a project, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to keep paying the yearly fee. I decided to de-IDE myself and as part of it I decided to look at my options. The more I saw of Emacs the more interested I got. However using the Doom emacs distribution kind of threw me in the deep end without actually understanding how Emacs operates. I was lost and bounced off quick. I decided to take the approach of starting with vanilla Emacs and trying to get it to work for me as an IDE one step at a time. This post was me documenting…

    Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Hi HN, This is a small RISC-V emulator I’ve been hacking on in Emacs Lisp as a fun weekend project. It started mostly as a way to better understand the RISC-V spec by implementing things myself, and also as an excuse to write more non-trivial Emacs Lisp. It currently focuses on RV32I and related basics, and is very much not optimized or production-ready. If you’re into RISC-V, emulators, or just enjoy seeing unusual things built in Emacs Lisp, feedback and comments are welcome Happy hacking!

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Hi HN, I'm thrilled to share with you think, a command-line tool that I developed while diving back into the programming scene. For the past few years, my focus had shifted from hands-on programming to managerial roles, my last one being at Affirm (I started Affirm's Polish office). However, I recently left my job to revisit my passion for coding and see if I could still write code that works. Not to mention that with what is currently going on in AI if you are a developer this probably the best possible time for a sabbatical in human history :) My first attempt was with LangChain, but I…

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21SC

    Sometimes, I come across a handy tool or a frustrating issue in my daily workflow. If it's both, I might write a small program in a language I’m comfortable with to solve it. Except for ELisp... For some reason, it annoyed me so much that I couldn't stop writing in it. First, it was simple config tweaks, then small patches, and before I knew it, I was enjoying it. I ended up creating a few packages, and of course, with each one, I’d hit a new problem, push the old one aside, and start fresh. Just hoping I don’t forget to go back to it later. Well, I didn't and I'm slowly revisiting,…

    2024 · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    An Introduction

    2017 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23LF

    We built a no/low-code tool that lets you spin up MCPs from a single prompt. MCPs give LLMs access to tools, data, and actions—but they’re hard to build and deploy. Our tool abstracts that: describe what you want, and it auto-generates and hosts the necessary components. No UI flows, no manual chaining—just prompt and go. Examples: • Pull email, parse a DocSend, check Reddit, draft reply • Extract data from a niche site + send a Slack alert • Combine tools without writing glue code Live demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uCiaQrgfoE Built over a weekend after getting…

    2025 · generatemcp.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24
    Elpis▲4

    A Codex-based coding-agent TUI with explicit context control, auditable Smart Prune, and local session continuity. - MasihMoafi/Elpis

    Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

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