Bright Vision
Native · Lean · Autonomous

AI-assisted coding
without the IDE baggage

Bright Vision is a lightweight, cross-platform desktop app built with Tauri and React. Privacy-first: run frontier models locally via Ollama + built-in Local LLM, not rented cloud inference. Cursor-like AI coding through a clean, focused workspace — powered by Bright Vision Core, a headless evolution of Cecli.

Homebrew cask Signed & notarized DMG Tauri v2 + Rust React + TypeScript macOS · Linux · Windows MIT License
Bright Vision application screenshot showing chat and terminal panels
Chat, terminal, and settings in one native shell

Eight meanings behind the name

Bright Vision is not a rebranded terminal wrapper. The name encodes how we think about AI-assisted engineering: spatial clarity, sovereign infrastructure, and supervision over typing.

01

Vision as the visual IDE

The spatial interface angle

The command line is powerful, but it lacks spatial context. Traditional IDEs have context, but they are bogged down by corporate bloat and plugin fatigue.

Bright Vision is the bridge. It extracts the raw, terminal-native power of an agentic core and wraps it in a focused, high-telemetry visual command center — inline diffs, token stats, and multi-repo file trees on a lean, memory-efficient Tauri stack. A visual workbench for the systems architect, without heavyweight telemetry tracking every keystroke.

02

Vision of the future

The sovereign stack angle

The industry’s default future is rented: you rent the AI, you rent the compute, and you surrender your IP to the cloud for autocomplete.

Bright Vision is a declaration of independence — a future where developers own their infrastructure. Pair Ollama with built-in Local LLM controls to pull and preload models on your hardware. Your prompts, architecture, and proprietary code stay on your machine — not a rented cloud autocomplete bill.

03

Vision as literal sight

The multi-modal angle

Systems engineering is visual — whiteboards, UI layouts, schematics — yet most AI pair programmers have been completely blind.

Bright Vision gives your agent eyes. Image and PDF context flow into your local workflow so you stop translating diagrams into prose. Drop in a system diagram, a UI mockup, or a failing terminal snapshot and let the agent see the problem. It closes the loop between the design in your head and the code on disk.

04

Vision as absolute transparency

The unclouded angle

Most modern AI IDEs are black boxes: you send code into the void and an answer comes back.

Bright Vision offers clarity end to end. Running on your own silicon means no opaque cloud endpoint and no hidden scraping of your IP. You get 20/20 vision into what the agent is thinking, doing, and executing — streamed events, proposed edits, and a technical terminal you can audit.

05

Vision as systems-level oversight

The architect angle

Generic tools get lost the moment a project scales beyond a single folder.

Bright Vision provides eagle-eye scope. Multi-repo and submodule awareness are first-class: it does not just see a file, it sees the architectural landscape. Macroscopic vision for safely orchestrating complex, interconnected systems — from superproject layouts to stacks like BrightChain.

06

Vision as intent

The spec-driven angle

Standard AI coding is reactive: you ask, it types.

Bright Vision shares your intent. Integrated, EARS-compatible spec-driven tasks keep the feature vision in context — WHEN/SHALL requirements, layered specs, and Implement steps — so the agent steers toward your architecture instead of guessing the next line.

07

Vision as supervision

The director angle

Typing is the lowest-leverage activity an engineer does.

Bright Vision elevates you from typist to director. You supply the vision; the agent supplies labor. Review proposed architectural diffs, confirm risky changes, queue and stop turns — guide the project from the captain’s chair instead of grinding syntax.

08

Vision as illumination

The dark code angle

Legacy codebases and undocumented modules are dark matter — known to exist, expensive to map.

Bright Vision illuminates those corners. Repo mapping, dependency context, git diffs, and structural signals surfaced in the UI cut hours of mental reverse-engineering. Dark code becomes navigable terrain.

Built for developers who want speed, not bloat

No Electron shell. No VS Code fork. Bright Vision pairs a native Rust backend with a minimal React front end and a headless AI engine you control.

01

Vision HTTP API

All prompting flows through a structured HTTP API. React is the head; the core engine stays headless under bright-vision-core/.

02

Chat & streaming

Thinking/Answer sections, proposed edits, confirm flow, queue/stop, stream dedupe, and configurable fonts including Glass TTY VT220 for chat.

03

Tasks & spec-driven work

Tasks tab with .bright-vision/todos.json, layered specs, generate/refine, and steered Implement steps (v1–v5 shipped).

04

Git & process

Git tab with diffs and commit graph; reliable core start/stop; determinate progress during repo scan; Technical terminal for engine output.

05

Submodule workspaces

Superproject layout with bright-vision-core as a submodule — built to dogfood Vision on itself.

06

Native performance

Rust + Tauri v2 keeps memory and startup time low on macOS, Linux, and Windows — without sacrificing cross-platform parity.

Head and body, cleanly separated

Bright Vision beheads the old standalone Cecli UX. Users never interact with the core CLI directly — every turn is API-driven.

Backend Rust + Tauri v2 Frontend React + TypeScript + Vite Styling MUI v6 + Emotion Packages Yarn (PnP)

Self-evolving by design. Primary validation is dogfooding on real repos via yarn tauri dev — same API and chat workflow you use for your own projects. See the living roadmap.

What’s shipped, what’s next

Summary aligned with docs/ROADMAP.md — update that file (and this page when publishing) when statuses change.

Done Partial Open Longer-term

Current focus: Dogfooding — workspace = superproject root (bright-vision/), not bright-vision-core/ alone. Quick test: yarn test:local; before bigger changes: yarn test:full. Submodule verification sections A–D gate “hack on Vision itself.”

Done Chat & session

  • Stream dedupe + tool timeline order
  • Proposed edits, confirms, queue/stop
  • /add Tab completion (desktop)
  • Images/PDF attach, token stats

Done Spec-driven (#18)

  • Tasks v1–v5: todos API, layered specs
  • Generate/refine spec, Implement steps
  • Background generate-spec jobs

Done Git & engine

  • Git tab (#27): diffs, graph, stage/undo
  • Core lifecycle, manual commit option
  • Activity-bar scan progress

In progress & backlog

# Status Item
19 Partial Submodule verify — automated green; manual dogfood sign-off (SUBMODULE_VERIFICATION A–D)
26 Partial Git status poll (8s); native file watcher open
28 Partial Context attach done; file-tree picker open
32 Open Suggested files — parse Answer bullet lists; tray + queue /add path messages (or Add all via API)
30 Partial Web dev via proxy; desktop-first generate-spec parity
31 Open Release hygiene — tag core, bump submodule pointer
20–22 Open Kiro-depth spec: dedicated agent UX, EARS linter, repo spec index
29 Longer-term Plugin / extension system

Suggested order while dogfooding: #19 manual pass → friction from real use → #28 if context hurts → #31 when sharing builds → #20–22 spec depth → plugins / web parity.

Full roadmap on GitHub →

Up and running in minutes

macOS

Homebrew — signed & notarized DMG

The fastest way to install on macOS. The cask downloads a universal (Apple Silicon + Intel) signed and notarized DMG — ready for Gatekeeper — and installs Bright Vision.app to /Applications/.

brew tap digital-defiance/tap
brew install bright-vision

Tap: digital-defiance/homebrew-tap

Local LLM (recommended)

Privacy-first: Ollama + built-in Local LLM

The desktop app starts Ollama, pulls your model, and preloads it — use Terminal → Local LLM or Auto before session. Install Ollama from ollama.com. Vision does not bundle weights or the Ollama runtime.

# Install Ollama from https://ollama.com/

mkdir -p local-llm
cat > local-llm/local-llm.env <<'EOF'
OLLAMA_HOST=http://127.0.0.1:11434
DATA_MODEL=qwen3.6:27b-q4_K_M
EOF

# Bright Vision → Settings: ollama_chat/qwen3.6:27b-q4_K_M
# Terminal → Local LLM → Start → Terminal → Start (session)

Edit local-llm.env (DATA_MODEL, OLLAMA_HOST). Vision maps them to LLM model and Ollama API base (auto on launch or Sync settings from .env in Settings). Save, then Terminal → Start.

Optional: LOCAL_LLM_DIR or Settings → local-llm directory for a custom local-llm.env path. Full guide →

Build from source

For development, Linux, Windows, or hacking on the app itself. Requires Node.js 18+, Rust (stable), Yarn 3+, Python venv via activate.sh, and a running LLM (see Local LLM above).

  1. Clone and init submodules

    Fetch the superproject, init bright-vision-core, activate the venv.

    git clone https://github.com/Digital-Defiance/bright-vision.git
    cd bright-vision
    git submodule update --init --recursive
    source activate.sh
  2. Install dependencies

    Yarn Plug'n'Play manages packages without a bloated node_modules tree.

    yarn install
  3. Configure local LLM

    Create local-llm/local-llm.env (see Local LLM section above). In the app: Terminal → Local LLM → Start, or enable Auto before session.

    # Or Settings → Sync settings from .env after editing local-llm.env
  4. Start development

    Launches the Tauri shell with hot reload for the React front end.

    yarn tauri dev
  5. Build for production

    Package a native binary for your platform.

    yarn tauri build