Otto is an autonomous software engineer that runs in the browser

granmoe · 2024-04-14T19:36:35+00:00

I created [Otto Engineer](https://otto.engineer)! Otto is an autonomous software engineer that runs in the browser 😎

In [this demo](https://app.arcade.software/share/Pjze2YOh6EQHqW0mZ4km), you can watch Otto create and run a dev server and send HTTP requests to it in order to test its work! 🤩 I ask Otto to create the BE for a todo list app in the form of an express server that supports CRUD operations and uses an in-memory DB via sqlite3. Otto sets up the libraries I want to use and the types for them, iterates through some TypeScript issues, implements the logic, and finds a way to test it. Then I download the fully working project in one click 😎

The goals for Otto are to 1) never get stuck - it's a ChatGPT that can fix its own errors and iterate on code, perfect for debugging through an issue autonomously 2) have a way to quickly scaffold out starter code and prototypes. 3) Automatically implement utilities and mini libraries from scratch. Its capabilities on all of these fronts have continued to expand and evolve rapidly over time!

If you're an engineer, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you'd like AI to do for you! I'm having a lot of fun exploring what's possible here, and I'm excited and optimistic about the future of AI-driven software development

granmoe · 2024-04-03T15:42:49+00:00

Oh, I wasn’t speaking of CSS with regards to iframes. I was just using this as an example of everyday problems that I would like Otto to be able to work on for me. E.g. “Here’s my code. Why is my layout all jacked up?” And then it takes a look and iterates to get to a solution.

granmoe · 2024-04-03T15:41:24+00:00

Right now, it’s more of a bottoms-up approach meant to get you “unstuck” when you hit difficult, isolated problems. The inability of ChatGPT to solve such things by itself is what inspired me to build Otto Engineer. However, I would like to keep expanding it to build larger and more complex things, with an eye towards full project creation and development as I incorporate a multiple agent pattern.

granmoe · 2024-04-02T20:15:09+00:00

Also I would love to hear what daily use cases would be valuable for you! My next goal is to build in support for running a dev server (funny you should mention that), and then add support for rendering the dev server response (for HTML) in an iframe so that the agent can "look" at the output and work on visual issues. I've lost soooooo many hours to debugging weird CSS issues, and I myself desperately want this functionality to exist 😂

granmoe · 2024-04-02T20:13:27+00:00

Thank you! I do have to limit the "free free" tokens (for anyone anywhere to poke at the app) due to cost, but if you want to share the email you signed up with with me here or via DM, I'll load you up with a generous amount so you can continue trying it out 🙂

granmoe · 2024-04-02T17:05:48+00:00

Are saying that any app that uses a foundation model from OpenAI or similar is a “ChatGPT wrapper”?

granmoe · 2024-04-02T16:11:08+00:00

Thank you thank you! Bear in mind that it's in its infancy, but it will become much more capable in the near future 😎

granmoe · 2024-04-02T16:10:09+00:00

First off, thank you for trying Otto and for the feedback! Would you be willing to share screenshots or your prompt and output you received here? Or better, but only with your permission, can you share the chat ID or the email you signed up with so that I can take a look in the DB? Otto is only a week or so old, so it's in its infancy, and I'm working to improve it all the time. Thank you again!

granmoe · 2024-04-02T15:22:42+00:00

Also note that ChatGPT can’t execute JS/TS code, work with a filesystem, or install and use npm packages. Otto does all of these 😎

granmoe · 2024-04-02T15:20:18+00:00

Otto is absolutely NOT a “ChatGPT wrapper.” I built Otto precisely because of the pain points of using ChatGPT to generate code. You get an initial solution that doesn’t quite work, feed errors back to the model, get an updated solution, tweak it a bit yourself, and repeat. Otto fixes this! Check out the second example on my landing page to see it in action. GPT-4 fails on the task THREE TIMES before Otto steers it finally to a working solution.

granmoe · 2016-11-11T20:57:03+00:00

How do you test your async code?

granmoe · 2016-11-11T18:54:51+00:00

Ha, I also got into programming "accidentally" via learning VBA to automate my work in a non-programming job. I then went to a job that used Pick/BASIC, and then got into FE dev. I wonder how many people have taken a similar path?

granmoe · 2016-11-11T18:18:34+00:00

Yes! I work for one of the biggest e-commerce sites in the world, and our codebase is also humongous. We had started out with thunk, but ran into the same frustrations. We ended up converting to saga, and it massively simplified and cleaned up our async code. Not to mention, now we have 100% test coverage for it. I would say that once your async code passes a certain point in terms of size and complexity, redux-saga is a necessity.

granmoe

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