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.patches/— the small set of core source patches (each tagged// [LevelCode]).scripts/— bootstrap / run-dev / build / dmg / icon.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 .dmgSee 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 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). Not affiliated with Microsoft.