Codify Agent

The Codify Agent is an AI assistant that turns plain English descriptions into working developer environment setups. Instead of learning a configuration language or hunting through docs, you just describe what you need — the agent figures out the rest.

How it works

The agent works from Codify's resource library: a catalog of validated, well-understood operations for tools like Homebrew, nvm, pyenv, Docker, VS Code, and more. When you describe what you want, the agent searches this library to find the right resources, builds a configuration, and validates it before showing it to you.

This is different from asking a general AI assistant to set up your environment. A general AI might write a shell script that runs brew install and npm install — which works until it doesn't. The Codify Agent generates configurations that Codify knows how to apply, modify, and reverse cleanly. Every change is reviewable before it runs.

Setting up your environment

Open the Desktop App and start a new conversation with the Codify Agent.

Describe what you need. Be as specific or as general as you like:

"Set up my machine for Python data science work"

"I need Node.js 20, VS Code, and Docker for a web project"

"Set up a Go backend development environment with Postgres"

Answer any clarifying questions. The agent may ask follow-up questions to make sure it gets things right — for example, whether you prefer a specific version of a tool or need a particular database set up locally.

Review the configuration. The agent generates a codify.jsonc config and shows it to you before doing anything.

Click Apply. Codify shows you the full plan — exactly what will be installed or changed — and asks for your confirmation. Once you approve, it runs.

You can also access the agent from the terminal by running codify edit, which opens the desktop app.

Editing an existing configuration

Every codify.jsonc file you open in the Desktop App has an agent sidebar. You can use it to make changes to an existing configuration without editing JSON directly.

For example:

"Add Python 3.11"
"Remove Docker"
"Switch to Node 22"

The agent proposes a diff showing exactly what changed. You can accept or reject it before anything is written to the file.

Using the CLI with agent-generated configs

Once the agent creates a configuration, you can work with it directly from the terminal:

codify plan — Preview what the configuration will do without making any changes
codify apply — Apply the configuration to your machine
codify edit — Open the Desktop App to edit the config with the agent

Why use the agent instead of a general AI

Most AI assistants can write shell scripts or give you a list of commands to run. That works, but it has a few downsides: the commands might not be idempotent (running them twice breaks things), there's no easy way to reverse them, and you have to trust that the script is doing exactly what you think.

The Codify Agent is different:

Built on validated resources — Every resource in Codify's library has been written to handle install, modify, and remove correctly. The agent only uses resources it knows how to manage.
Review before anything runs — The generated config is shown to you, and Codify always shows a plan before making changes. Nothing happens without your approval.
Reversible — Because Codify understands each resource, it can also undo changes cleanly when needed.
Handles dependencies — The agent knows, for example, that Homebrew needs to be installed before Homebrew formulae. It handles the ordering automatically.

Supported tools

The agent can configure any tool in Codify's resource library. This includes Homebrew, apt, nvm, pyenv, jenv, VS Code, Docker, AWS CLI, Git, SSH keys, and many more. See the full resource list for details.

Don't see a tool you need? You can contact us to request it, or build your own plugin using the developer guide.