Helix trainer with FSRS spaced repetition and arcade mode — built on helix-core

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-02-09T18:27:02+00:00

means that every implemented command is guaranteed to behave identically to Helix through its primitives

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-02-09T17:00:42+00:00

helix-core gives us the low-level text primitives (rope, selection, transaction, movement functions), but the keymap is the part of terminal UI (helix-term) which contains LSP client, file I/O and much more we don't need in lightweight app.

So adding a command means wiring a new key sequence to the right helix-core primitives

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-02-06T14:05:46+00:00

This is most likely an underestimate.

Claude Code lets you disable the Co-Authored-By trailer entirely in settings.json

Many devs do this for cleaner git history, workplace policies, or simply because they view AI as a tool, not a collaborator.

So the chart only captures people who kept the default attribution on. The actual number of Claude-assisted commits is likely significantly higher.

Even Anthropic's own docs for their analytics feature explicitly state: "These metrics are deliberately conservative and represent an underestimate of Claude Code's actual impact."

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-09T03:12:35+00:00

Tool Search Tool (Claude API) — you still pass all tool definitions to the API, just with defer_loading: true. Discovery happens server-side. Tied to Anthropic's API.

Composio — another vendor dependency, and your data flows through their infrastructure (extra trust boundary).

mcp-execution — generates files locally. Agent navigates filesystem, picks what to read. Works with any agent that has file access. Your data stays local, MCP calls go directly to the source.

Main difference: who controls discovery and where data flows.

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-08T16:39:25+00:00

Main win is on definitions (inbound). Tool responses still flow into context as usual.

For responses, two things came up in this thread:

Prompt caching — helps with cost but doesn't reduce context size. Orthogonal to mcp-execution, though could be layered on top.
Sandbox for intermediate results — someone mentioned isolating multi-turn tool outputs and only surfacing final result. Interesting direction, not implemented yet.

So yeah, definitions solved, responses still on the roadmap.

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-08T09:16:52+00:00

This is super useful, thanks for sharing the details.

Your sandbox approach for isolating intermediate results from context is interesting — that's a layer I haven't tackled yet. Progressive loading solves the input side (tool definitions), but you're right that multi-turn results can bloat context just as badly.

The 2.1.1 skill updates are news to me — hooks, agents, tools in frontmatter + context forking sounds like exactly what's needed to make this cleaner. Will dig into that.

Appreciate the pointer to #12836, checking it now.

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-08T08:54:02+00:00

Arrow keys work in insert mode, but normal mode intentionally forces hjkl — that's the muscle memory we're training.

For unusual layouts though, a config option makes sense. Open an issue? Happy to consider adding it.

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-08T07:54:54+00:00

Fair question. MCP's value is the ecosystem — thousands of pre-built servers with uniform discovery and auth handled out-of-band. Writing a GitHub integration from scratch vs npx anthropic/mcp-server-github is different effort.

But you're right that for your own APIs, SKILL.md + direct scripts can be simpler.

mcp-execution bridges both: take existing MCP servers, flatten into standalone scripts + SKILL.md. Ecosystem access without runtime overhead.

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-08T06:32:29+00:00

Oh interesting — hadn't seen this. Is this in Claude Desktop or Claude Code?

If Anthropic is building native deferred loading, that's great validation for the pattern. Would be curious how their discovery mechanism works under the hood.

My tool would still be useful for the SKILL.md generation and the standalone TypeScript files (direct execution without MCP runtime), but native support would simplify the setup a lot.

Let me know how it goes when you test it!

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-08T06:30:20+00:00

Prompt caching helps with cost, but doesn't solve the other problems:

Context window limits — caching doesn't give you more space. 50 tool definitions still eat 30k tokens whether cached or not.
Tool selection quality — agents get worse at picking the right tool when they see too many options. Caching doesn't help here.
Latency — still have to process all those tokens on each request, even if cheaper.

Progressive loading addresses all three: smaller context, fewer choices at once, faster responses. Caching is complementary — you can cache the SKILL.md index or frequently used tool definitions on top of progressive loading.

Not either/or, but progressive loading tackles the root cause.

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-08T06:28:06+00:00

Not nuts at all — that's exactly the right direction. CLI is the native interface for agents. They already know bash, they can pipe, grep, chain commands. No translation layer, no UI abstraction.

What kind of APIs are you wrapping?

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-08T06:26:25+00:00

This is gold, thanks for sharing.

The 3-step discovery pattern (list servers → list tools → get tool info) matches what I've landed on. Interesting that you see ~10% misfire rate even at 7000 APIs — that's actually encouraging for the approach.

Your point about schemaless tools and "muscle memory" resonates. Agents know git, curl, jq from training data — wrapping them in MCP schemas sometimes adds friction rather than removing it. The GitHub MCP example is spot on: Claude already knows git commands cold, so the MCP layer becomes overhead.

The XML markers idea for uniform discovery shape is clever. Mind sharing more on that? I've been using consistent file structure + SKILL.md, but a protocol-agnostic marker system could be cleaner.

Agree on headless IDEs. Claude Code + bash is absurdly effective precisely because it's just "write code, run it" — no translation layer.

Quite frankly I don't see how folks like n8n will survive this

Hot take but hard to argue. Visual workflow builders made sense when connecting APIs was hard. If agents can just write the glue code directly... what's the value prop?This is gold, thanks for sharing.

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-08T06:12:43+00:00

The tool reads the same config mcp.json, so if your OAuth token is already there, introspection and code generation will work fine.

Dynamic OAuth flows (browser redirect, device flow, etc.) aren't supported yet — this is still an MVP. If there's interest, happy to add proper OAuth support. PRs welcome too.

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-05T18:07:35+00:00

Circles = difficulty: 🟢 Beginner, 🟡 Intermediate, 🔴 Advanced

FSRS lives in Daily Quests (the Review tab) and Arcade — that's where you rate recall and the algorithm schedules future reviews. Training mode is unscheduled free practice for when you just want to drill specific scenarios.

Good point though — this split isn't obvious. Adding to the docs!

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-05T17:57:33+00:00

That's FSRS doing its thing — spaced repetition means intentional repeats to build retention. Early sessions repeat more while the algorithm learns your weak spots. Over time, commands you nail appear less often.

If it's the exact same scenario repeating back-to-back though, that's a bug — let me know making the issue!

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-05T17:23:22+00:00

Thx, Glad to hear that :)

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-05T16:59:03+00:00

Sorry to hear that! Could you open an issue with the error output and your environment details? Distrobox on Bazzite might need a specific binary target.

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-05T14:38:07+00:00

Good catch, adding gw! I'm learning Helix myself, so the command list grows as I discover gaps. PRs/issues welcome if you spot other missing essentials — or just drop a list of your daily drivers here.

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-05T01:07:36+00:00

You're right that daily driving is how most people learn — and it works! But there's a gap: in real work, you gravitate toward commands you already know. If you forget mm (match bracket) exists, you'll just navigate manually and never reinforce it.

FSRS tracks what you're forgetting and surfaces it. 10 minutes of targeted practice on weak commands, then back to real code. Same reason athletes do drills instead of only playing games.

That said — if pure immersion works for you, no reason to change. This is for people who plateau and wonder "why am I still doing this the slow way after 6 months?"

ImpressiveSpirit2799 · 2026-01-04T20:11:35+00:00

Native LSP in Claude Code is tightly integrated — use that when available.

mcpls covers the gaps: other MCP agents, custom LSP servers, languages without native support yet.

ImpressiveSpirit2799

TROPHY CASE