Dash

The coding agent for your coding agent.

Save your good tokens for the fancy parts, use Dash for the implementation.

npx @jkershaw/dash@latest help

Your inference, your cost Bring your own OpenRouter API key or run against LM Studio locally. Pay model costs directly — no markup, no lock-in.
Reads, plans, then codes Dash researches your codebase first, writes a test plan and implementation plan, then generates the diff. Each step stays focused — no confused model, no wasted tokens.
Self-corrects on test failures Runs your test suite after each attempt. If it fails, diagnoses the output and retries — up to 3 times.

How Dash Works

You give Dash a task, a repo, and a test command. It does the rest:

Understand — reads your codebase, searches for relevant files, maps conventions
Plan — writes a test spec and implementation strategy before touching any code
Implement — generates search/replace diffs applied cleanly via git
Verify — runs your test suite. If tests fail, diagnoses the output and retries — up to 3 times

Access & Pricing

Dash orchestrates your inference. Choose the approach that fits your workflow:

BYOK Free

Connect your own OpenRouter API key. Pay model costs directly — typically fractions of a dollar per task. No markup, no subscription, no rate limits.

Local Free

Point Dash at LM Studio running on your localhost. No API key, no account required.

Hosted Coming soon

Dash provides the inference with optimized model defaults. No key management, no model selection — just run tasks.

Getting Started

Run your first task from inside any git repository:

npx @jkershaw/dash@latest "Add input validation to the signup form" -y

That's it. Dash auto-detects your repo and test command, connects to the server, and authenticates automatically. No API key setup required to get started.

Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)

By default, tasks use a shared anonymous session. To link your own OpenRouter API key — removing rate limits and giving you full model choice:

npx @jkershaw/dash@latest login

This opens your browser to authenticate with OpenRouter via OAuth. Your API key is exchanged directly with OpenRouter and stored in your server session — Dash never sees it in plaintext. Credentials are saved locally at ~/.config/dash-build/credentials.json and reused automatically on future runs.

Local Mode

For fully local inference, start LM Studio and run the Dash Build server yourself. No API key, no account, no network required. See the GitHub repo for setup instructions.

Calling Dash from your agent

Dash is designed to be invoked by AI orchestrators — hand off implementation tasks and stay focused on the bigger picture. Run the built-in guide to get integration instructions:

npx @jkershaw/dash@latest guide

Tip: Always include @latest to ensure you have the current version. Without it, npx may serve a cached older copy.

Dash works best on 1–4 file, single-concern tasks. Decompose larger work first.
Use -y (auto-approve) and -v (verbose) flags when calling from an agent.
Describe the goal, not the steps. Dash discovers the codebase and creates its own plan. Over-specified prompts cause complexity rejections.
For full CLI reference: npx @jkershaw/dash@latest help