Void

Void was an open source AI IDE built as a fork of VS Code, developed by Glass Devtools, Inc. and backed by Y Combinator. It allowed developers to write code with AI assistance while connecting directly to any LLM provider — bypassing intermediary backends — and retaining full control over their data. The project has since been deprecated and is no longer accepting contributions, though the source code remains publicly available under the Apache License 2.0.

What It Is

Void was a desktop code editor in the same category as Cursor and Windsurf — AI-augmented IDEs built on top of VS Code. Its core differentiator was direct LLM connectivity: rather than routing messages through a proprietary backend, Void sent requests straight to the chosen provider or locally hosted model. The full source code is available on GitHub and the repository has accumulated over 28,000 stars, making it one of the more widely referenced VS Code forks in the open-source community.

AI Features and Workflow

Void shipped several AI-assisted coding capabilities:

• Tab autocomplete — press Tab to apply inline code suggestions, with custom support for FIM (Fill-in-the-Middle) models
• Quick Edit — inline editing of selected code via a keyboard shortcut
• Chat modes — Agent Mode, Gather Mode, and standard chat for interacting with the codebase
• Checkpoints — snapshot and visualize LLM-driven changes before accepting them
• Lint error detection — automatic identification of lint errors during AI edits
• Fast Apply — streaming diff application that works on files up to 1,000 lines

Any Model, Anywhere

A central design principle was model flexibility. Void supported both private/self-hosted LLMs and frontier cloud models:

• Private/local models via Ollama and vLLM: DeepSeek, Llama, Gemma, Qwen, Mistral, and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
• Frontier providers: Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, Google Gemini, xAI Grok, and others — connected directly without a middleman

VS Code Compatibility

Because Void is a direct fork of VS Code, it inherited the full VS Code extension ecosystem and allowed one-click transfer of themes, keybindings, and settings from an existing VS Code installation. The codebase extended VS Code's build pipeline to mount React and Tailwind, added custom GitHub Actions for packaging, signing, and auto-updating, and built AI provider code from scratch to support FIM autocomplete and streaming diffs.

Current Status: Deprecated

The GitHub README states that Void is now deprecated and no longer accepting contributions. The repository is archived. The team has published a list of active Void forks at github.com/voideditor/void-forks for developers looking for a maintained successor. Old releases remain downloadable, and the codebase continues to serve as a reference implementation for teams forking VS Code — particularly for its React/Tailwind mounting approach, GitHub Actions build pipeline, and AI provider architecture.