rovecode 0.2 — the cockpit, not the chat log

Most coding agents give you a chat log. You type, it types, and somewhere below the fold a file changed. rovecode 0.2 gives you a cockpit instead: six panels on one terminal screen, each showing one thing you would otherwise have to ask about.

What is on the screen

The files panel shows the tree with git status. The code panel shows the file the agent is touching, with the edited lines held in a highlight band and the ± diff in the gutter. The messages panel is the conversation, but tool calls are compact rows — read, edit, bash — not paragraphs. The plan panel is the agent's own list of steps with the current one marked. The usage panel is context and cost. And the pet is there because a run with no visible state is a run you cannot trust.

Everything is painted by the same code path the headless renderer uses for the screenshots on this site, so what you see in the frame is what runs.

Sixteen providers, one seam

Provider configuration moved into ~/.rovecode/providers.json: sixteen built-in providers, or any endpoint that speaks the OpenAI shape. Fallback chains are ordered lists; if the first provider refuses, the second is tried before you are asked. The registry reloads on save, so switching models does not mean restarting the session.

The policy in front of everything

The four layers — rules, execpolicy, approval, runtime — are not new, but 0.2 makes the approval card the centre of the messages panel. The card shows the revised argv, not the model's paraphrase of it, and offers allow, always and deny. Answers are cached per session, and child agents cannot prompt: only the top-level run can ask you anything.

Two things we did not ship

There is still no plugin marketplace with ratings — the market lists what the repository ships and nothing else. And there is no cloud sandbox: rovecode runs on your machine, and untrusted work still belongs in a container you control.

Try it

git clone https://github.com/9Code-Labs/rovecode && cd rovecode && bun install && bun link
rovecode "fix the failing test"

Bun ≥ 1.3.14 is the one requirement. The changelog has the full list.