Prospero is a native GUI AI coding harness written in C++ with Dear ImGui that connects to local or remote model providers and lets agents drive your computer to develop software.
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It runs as a single executable with no daemon, keeps working through intermittent errors while unattended, and can also run headless, over ssh or in the background.
- 01
Single native C++ executable for Windows, macOS and Linux with a dockable, idle-free ImGui interface
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OpenAI Chat Completions and Anthropic Messages API support, including extended thinking and prompt caching
- 03
Sessions with subagents, todo lists, plans and background jobs
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Desktop control so the agent can see and drive the screen to build and test native GUI apps
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One prospero.ini for endpoints, models, roles, skills, MCP servers and web search, with keys read only from env: or file: references
Open Source
Prospero is free, public-domain software (Unlicense) with prebuilt binaries for Windows, macOS and Linux. It ships with no provider configured, so model costs depend on the endpoint you connect: a local llama.cpp or vLLM server is free to run, while hosted OpenAI-compatible or Anthropic APIs bill per token on your own key.
Best for
Developers who want a lean, local-first coding harness that works with self-hosted models or any compatible API and can develop and test native desktop applications.
Not ideal for
Teams that want a managed, preconfigured cloud agent or deep IDE integration, since Prospero ships unconfigured and is a very young project with rapid breaking changes.
A refreshingly small, dependency-light alternative to Electron-based agent apps that stands out for native desktop control and provider neutrality, best suited to hands-on developers comfortable configuring their own endpoints.
First published in October 2026 and announced on Chris Wellons's nullprogram.com blog on October 31, 2026 (205 points on Hacker News). Releases v0.9.0 (October 30), v0.10.0 (November 1) and v0.11.0 (November 2, 2026) shipped binaries for Linux x86_64/aarch64, macOS arm64 and Windows x86_64, with recent commits tightening approvals for included web URLs and MCP servers.
As of
Is Prospero free?+
Yes - Prospero is Open Source. Prospero is free, public-domain software (Unlicense) with prebuilt binaries for Windows, macOS and Linux. It ships with no provider configured, so model costs depend on the endpoint you connect: a local llama.cpp or vLLM server is free to run, while hosted OpenAI-compatible or Anthropic APIs bill per token on your own key.
Is Prospero open source?+
Yes - Prospero is open source. Prospero is free, public-domain software (Unlicense) with prebuilt binaries for Windows, macOS and Linux. It ships with no provider configured, so model costs depend on the endpoint you connect: a local llama.cpp or vLLM server is free to run, while hosted OpenAI-compatible or Anthropic APIs bill per token on your own key.
Who is Prospero best for?+
Developers who want a lean, local-first coding harness that works with self-hosted models or any compatible API and can develop and test native desktop applications.
Who is Prospero not ideal for?+
Teams that want a managed, preconfigured cloud agent or deep IDE integration, since Prospero ships unconfigured and is a very young project with rapid breaking changes.
What are the best Prospero alternatives?+
The closest Prospero alternatives on ai.dosa.dev are Cursor, Devin, Trae - all listed under AI-Native IDEs & Editors.
Who makes Prospero?+
Prospero is developed by Chris Wellons (skeeto). It is listed in the AI-Native IDEs & Editors category on ai.dosa.dev.
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