Intro

Get started with PhysicsCode.

PhysicsCode is an open source AI coding agent. It’s available as a terminal-based interface and a VS Code extension, with a desktop app in progress.

PhysicsCode TUI with the physicscode theme

Let’s get started.

Prerequisites

To use PhysicsCode in your terminal, you’ll need:

A modern terminal emulator like:
- WezTerm, cross-platform
- Alacritty, cross-platform
- Ghostty, Linux and macOS
- Kitty, Linux and macOS
API keys for the LLM providers you want to use.

Install

Install PhysicsCode with the install script, which downloads the right binary for your platform and updates it in place on later runs:

curl -fsSL https://www.physicscode.ai/physicscode/install | bash

You can also install the VS Code extension to use PhysicsCode from your editor.

Windows

Configure

With PhysicsCode you can use any LLM provider by configuring their API keys.

If you are new to using LLM providers, we recommend starting with PAI Dynamics Hosted — PhysicsCode’s built-in, no-setup default.

physicscode account login

Or run /connect in the TUI and select PAI Dynamics Hosted. No API key to paste — it uses your logged-in account.

Alternatively, you can select one of the other providers. Learn more.

Initialize

Now that you’ve configured a provider, you can navigate to a project that you want to work on.

cd /path/to/project

And run PhysicsCode.

physicscode

Next, initialize PhysicsCode for the project by running the following command.

/init

This will get PhysicsCode to analyze your project and create an AGENTS.md file in the project root.

This helps PhysicsCode understand the project structure and the coding patterns used.

Usage

You are now ready to use PhysicsCode to work on your project. Feel free to ask it anything!

If you are new to using an AI coding agent, here are some examples that might help.

Ask questions

You can ask PhysicsCode to explain the codebase to you.

How is authentication handled in @packages/functions/src/api/index.ts

This is helpful if there’s a part of the codebase that you didn’t work on.

Add features

You can ask PhysicsCode to add new features to your project. Though we first recommend asking it to create a plan.

Create a plan

PhysicsCode has a Plan mode that disables its ability to make changes and instead suggest how it’ll implement the feature.

Switch to it using the Tab key. You’ll see an indicator for this in the lower right corner.
```
<TAB>
```
Now let’s describe what we want it to do.
```
When a user deletes a note, we'd like to flag it as deleted in the database.
Then create a screen that shows all the recently deleted notes.
From this screen, the user can undelete a note or permanently delete it.
```
You want to give PhysicsCode enough details to understand what you want. It helps to talk to it like you are talking to a junior developer on your team.

Give PhysicsCode plenty of context and examples to help it understand what you want.
Iterate on the plan

Once it gives you a plan, you can give it feedback or add more details.
```
We'd like to design this new screen using a design I've used before.
[Image #1] Take a look at this image and use it as a reference.
```
Drag and drop images into the terminal to add them to the prompt.

PhysicsCode can scan any images you give it and add them to the prompt. You can do this by dragging and dropping an image into the terminal.
Build the feature

Once you feel comfortable with the plan, switch back to Build mode by hitting the Tab key again.
```
<TAB>
```
And asking it to make the changes.
```
Sounds good! Go ahead and make the changes.
```

Make changes

For more straightforward changes, you can ask PhysicsCode to directly build it without having to review the plan first.

We need to add authentication to the /settings route. Take a look at how this is
handled in the /notes route in @packages/functions/src/notes.ts and implement
the same logic in @packages/functions/src/settings.ts

You want to make sure you provide a good amount of detail so PhysicsCode makes the right changes.

Undo changes

Let’s say you ask PhysicsCode to make some changes.

Can you refactor the function in @packages/functions/src/api/index.ts?

But you realize that it is not what you wanted. You can undo the changes using the /undo command.

/undo

PhysicsCode will now revert the changes you made and show your original message again.

Can you refactor the function in @packages/functions/src/api/index.ts?

From here you can tweak the prompt and ask PhysicsCode to try again.

Or you can redo the changes using the /redo command.

/redo

Customize

And that’s it! You are now a pro at using PhysicsCode.

To make it your own, we recommend picking a theme, customizing the keybinds, configuring code formatters, creating custom commands, or playing around with the PhysicsCode config.