“A major overhaul”: OpenCode 2.0 puts its terminal, desktop, and web apps on one shared service

OpenCode 2.0, the latest major release of the open-source coding agent, has been unveiled after three months of public beta. The overhaul integrates the terminal, web, and desktop interfaces onto a single shared background service, accompanied by a revamped API, a new embeddable SDK, and support for background subagents and shell commands.

Anomaly, the company behind OpenCode, described the release as a "major overhaul," attributing its success to feedback from millions of daily users. The company has been working on version 2.0 for several months, including publishing detailed technical documentation on plugin architecture and hot-reloading capabilities in September.

However, the gradual rollout has caused confusion among developers, with concerns about the software's stability and missing release notes. Monday's announcement, along with the official changelog switching to the 2.x series, now confirms version 2.0 as OpenCode's primary release. Anomaly has also provided a thorough explanation of the technical decisions behind the upgrade.

The company's journey began in serverless development, with founders Jay V and Frank Wang previously creating Serverless Stack (SST), an open-source framework for AWS. OpenCode gained popularity among developers seeking greater control over AI models powering their coding tools. The GitHub repository now boasts over 212,000 stars and nearly 30,000 forks.

In July, Anaconda acquired Kilo, another open-source coding agent, which built its command-line interface and VS Code extension using OpenCode. With version 2.0, Anomaly has reworked OpenCode's underlying architecture to support a broader range of use cases. The most significant change involves how the coding agent operates and how its interfaces connect to it.

The server now starts automatically as a background process, allowing the terminal, browser, and desktop interfaces to communicate with the same underlying service. Developers can access and manage their coding sessions through different interfaces while the service handles the execution. Scripts built with OpenCode's programmatic client can automatically discover and connect to the local service, useful for scheduled tasks.

Additionally, developers can expose the service to other machines and pair it with external applications. The overhaul also includes a redesigned API, which was previously built piecemeal. The new API provides the agent with greater control over its environment, enabling features like creating Git worktrees, transferring sessions into worktrees, and identifying/stopping stuck sessions.

Moreover, a new embeddable SDK, @opencode/sdk, allows developers to incorporate OpenCode directly into their applications. Finally, the release introduces Code Mode and background execution, enabling agents to write JavaScript that calls multiple tools seamlessly.