You are right. You can build your own, or you can pick one you like and tweak it as you please.

I think different products cover different needs. I think there's lots of options nowadays and I'm most of the options shine one way or the other, it just depends on the mental model of the user and their goal.

I started my own tool less than amonth ago [1]. I did my first Show HN a week after, I was really proud, I added lots of features that first week just to accomodate my own needs and I was not even focused on this project but I could already see how it really helped me remove a lot of fatigue on managing multiple projects and be capable of manage them all at my own pace. My tool, in particular, was created with a focus on iterating over projects, not agents, and in the human (you) having full control on what you do. Anyway, the thing is that the very same day I posted the Show HN, there was this other project that was also submitted some hours before [3]. This project had more traction and comments already and was the one that appeared on the first page of HN. I haven't tried it, but I'm sure it would be great as well.

Yesterday I had a call with another dev at my organization, and he was also doing his own thing (unaware of the one I did, and unaware of other options available already) and I could already see the overlap with different tools and I even pointed out other projects for him to gather for ideas. I think is fantastic that so many people are exploring this space.

The reality I'm observing, with the latest state-of-the-art models, is that they are amazingly capable models and that less and less I need to even review what they produce. I trust on them more and more. This has deep implications moving forward.

I think we'll see two trends moving forward:

- Devs will build their own tools their own way (not all, but some will)

- Devs will clone an open-source project, and then, instead of forking and pusing upstream, they will just adjust to their own needs and detour from the original project more often than before

Sure enough, some people will just take the convenience of a ready-made project, and not even bother to iterate over your own thing, but when you are one prompt away from fixing this big issue or this subtle detail that annoys you, you don't need a config param anymore, and you don't need to wait days or weeks for somebody to fix, if you can compile the project in your machine, you can just create your own version of the software that works the way you want. You are just one prompt (or 10 or 50) of creating or adjusting to your own preferences.

Industry-wise I think this feels sometimes scary, but I think it is amazing.

[1] https://github.com/pausan/agenttik

[2] My Show HN 2 weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49720222

[3] Another, more successful, Show HN same day as mine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49713894

edit: formatting issues and minor tweaks on wording