OpenCode 2.0 runs its terminal, desktop and web clients against one background process

Anomaly says OpenCode has had the client/server plumbing since its first release, but outside of power users hardly anyone sought it out ^[8]. What 2.0 changes is the default. The server now starts automatically as a single background process on the developer's machine, and the terminal, browser and desktop interfaces all communicate with it ^[9].

The service handles execution, and the interfaces are different ways to manage sessions on it ^[10]. A session started in the terminal can therefore be continued in the desktop or web app ^[14]. One process per machine is tidy until it hangs. Every client attached to it is then waiting on the same thing.

Scripts are the other kind of client. Those built on the programmatic client find and connect to the local service on their own, and the report calls that useful for scheduled tasks ^[11]. Developers can also expose the service to other machines and pair it with external applications ^[12].

Anomaly published a detailed technical account of the plugin architecture and hot-reloading in September ^[5], so that part of the design was public well before Monday's post. Release status was murkier. Developers complained about missing release notes even as updates kept shipping ^[6].

The API redesign is ground-up ^[13]. We'd expect that to land hardest on projects already built against the old one. Kilo, which Anaconda acquired in July, had already rebuilt its command-line interface and VS Code extension using OpenCode ^[15]. The OpenCode repository has north of 212,000 stars and almost 30,000 forks ^[16].