Personal Kilo Editor

A terminal editor built by one person, for one person's workflow.

Where human + AI collaboration is the norm.
Where developing software and having fun while doing it is a given.
Three AI instances — Linux, BSD, Windows — working in parallel,
guided by one human who writes the vision and ships the result.

v0.52.0 · BSD-2-Clause · ~24,600 LOC
📁 View Repository
Human + AIs · Work-in-Progress

Three Modes. Four Platforms. One Editor.

pk runs everywhere you do — GUI window, terminal emulator, or bare console. Same codebase, same keybindings, same experience.

GUI Mode

--gui
pk in GUI mode with GTK3 backend, showing File dropdown menu with mouse cursor hovering over Open...
Linux Windows FreeBSD SerenityOS (soon)

Terminal Mode

:term
pk in terminal mode inside GNOME Console, showing Edit dropdown with mouse cursor hovering over Find...
Linux Windows FreeBSD SerenityOS (soon)

Classic Mode

default
pk in classic mode — no mouse, no dropdown, pure keyboard-driven editing
Linux Windows FreeBSD SerenityOS (soon)

Human + AI. Not Human or AI.

Three Qwen instances working in parallel on the same codebase, coordinated by one human who sets the vision and ships the result.

Human developer Human Vision & Coordination
+
Qwen on FreeBSD Bsd QwenCy FreeBSD 14.4
+
Qwen on Linux Lin QwenCy Linux
+
pqsee SerenityOS (soon)
+
Qwen on Windows Win QwenCy Windows
"Every improvement must be portable. If it only works on one platform, it's not done." — Project Vision, COORDINATION.md

pk at Work

Three Qwen instances — Linux, BSD, Windows — developing in parallel, coordinated by one human who sets the vision and ships the result.

pk in action — 60-second demo (4:30–5:30 of full recording)

Beyond the Editor

pk is more than a terminal — it's a living project with stories, research, and security built in.

🎨

Commit Comics

94 illustrated stories from the project's history — each one a developer diary entry with art, debug journeys, and lessons learned. Dark-mode SVG comics, xkcd meets a commit log.

View comics →
🔬

Studies

Feasibility research, design audits, and deep-dive analyses on everything from multi-cursor editing to theme systems to loop trap prevention. The engineering notebook, published.

Browse studies →
📚

Books

Long-form essays and research papers on AI-assisted development, collaborative workflows, and honest assessments of what works and what doesn't. The library, open for browsing.

Read books →
🛡️

Trust Gate

A 5-gate URL evaluation system — WHOIS, DNS, TLS, brand impersonation, and threat feeds. Open-source, client-side, no external dependencies. Try the live checker on the dashboard.

Check trust →

About Personal Kilo Editor

Personal Kilo (pk) is a terminal-based text editor inspired by vim and nano, built from scratch in C99 with no external dependencies (except libcap for sandboxing). It's designed as both a production editor and learning material for software design and development.

Key Features

Platform Support

Platform Status Binary
Linux ✅ Primary binaries/lnx/pk
FreeBSD 14.4 ✅ Supported binaries/bsd/pk
Windows ✅ Supported binaries/win/pk.exe
SerenityOS ⏳ Coming soon —

Sister Projects

Project What Status
pk Text editor (this project) v0.52.0
pl File pager (read-only viewer) Active
pterm Standalone terminal emulator Active
ptig Git TUI client (tig-like) Active
pcomms SerenityOS chat client Scaffold

License

BSD 2-Clause License. See LICENSE for details.

Documentation

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