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Source code teardowns of AI coding agents. Architecture diagrams, design patterns, and the stuff nobody documents.

Claude Code hides 18 virtual pet species inside production code that runs on your machine. MemPalace got 30K stars in 4 days - with 7,600 lines of Python. oh-my-codex runs 30 AI agents in parallel using git worktrees for isolation. None of this is in the docs. We found it by reading every file.

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Awesome AI Anatomy

15 AI agent projects dissected - architecture diagrams, design patterns, and the engineering decisions nobody documents.

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Table of Contents

• Greatest Hits
• Project Index
• Cross-Project Comparison
• What Makes This Different
• Each Teardown Includes
• Coming Next
• Contributing
• Stay Updated

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Greatest Hits

The 5 findings people can't stop sharing:

#	Finding	Project	Why It Matters
1	Claude Code ships 18 virtual pet species - a full tamagotchi system hidden in a coding agent	Claude Code	What else is hiding in tools you run with sudo?
2	Pi Mono's "stealth mode" mirrors Claude Code tool names for provider compatibility	Pi Mono	Open-source projects gaming API providers is a trend
3	MiroFish's "collective intelligence" = LLM social simulation - agents role-playing humans on a simulated social network	MiroFish	50K stars driven by a compelling vision of agent-based prediction
4	Lightpanda's bitcast dispatch makes Zig act like a language with vtables - a systems trick we'd never seen before	Lightpanda	Zig comptime metaprogramming pushed to its limits
5	DeerFlow's orphan tool call bug - 93 lines of code fix a crash that affects every LangGraph-based agent	DeerFlow	If you use LangGraph, you probably have this bug too

These are real findings from reading source code, not vibes from README files.

Ever wondered how Claude Code manages its context window? Or why Codex CLI chose Rust and built a 17K-line sandbox? These teardowns answer questions like that by reading the actual source code.

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Project Index

15 AI agent source code analyses - from orchestration frameworks to coding assistants.

On mobile? Scroll right to see all columns, or tap a project name to read the full teardown.

#	Project	Stars	Language	Lines	Key Findings	Status
001	Dify	136K	Python + TS	1.24M	graphon engine, 7+ containers, 30+ vector DBs	Published
002	Claude Code	109K	TypeScript	510K	4-layer context, hidden pet system (18 species)	Published
003	Browser Use	87K	Python	53K	Raw CDP over Playwright, DOM pipeline beats screenshots 5x, skills system, custom Chromium fork	NEW
004	OpenHands	71K	Python + TS	400K	10 condensers, 3-layer security, 487-line stuck detector	Published
005	Cline	60K	TypeScript	560K	3,756-line God Object, 40+ providers, YOLO mode, hooks system	Published
006	DeerFlow	58K	Python + TS	180K	14-layer middleware, hash loop kill@5, no RBAC	Published
007	MiroFish	50K	Python + Vue	39K	LLM social simulation engine for collective intelligence	Published
008	Goose	37K	Rust + TS	198K	MCP-first bus, 5-inspector pipeline, 30+ LLMs	Published
009	Pi Mono	32K	TypeScript	147K	Game-engine arch, stealth mode as Claude Code	Published
010	MemPalace	30K	Python	9K	Milla Jovovich's 4-layer memory palace, AAAK dialect debunked	Published
011	OpenAI Codex CLI	27K	Rust	549K	Queue-pair arch, Guardian AI approval, 3-OS sandbox	Published
012	Lightpanda	27K	Zig + Rust	91K	From-scratch browser for AI agents, 9x Chrome	Published
013	Hermes Agent	26K	Python	260K	Self-improving skills, FTS5 search, frozen mem	Published
014	oh-my-claudecode	24K	TypeScript	194K	19-agent team via file IPC, Haiku→Opus routing	Published
015	oh-my-codex	19.5K	TypeScript	124K	30 agents, git worktrees, plugin hook SDK, autoresearch loops	Published
016	Guardrails AI	6.6K	Python	18K	Validator Hub, reask self-correction loop	Published

Projects sorted by GitHub stars (descending).

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Cross-Project Comparison

Interactive Comparison Tool - filter, search, and compare projects side by side.

We maintain a detailed COMPARISON.md with side-by-side analysis across all 16 projects:

• Quick Reference (creator, stars, language, type, license)
• Architecture patterns (agent loop, extensibility, deployment)
• Multi-agent & orchestration approaches
• Memory & persistence strategies

We also have a CROSS-CUTTING.md - a deep horizontal analysis covering:

• Architecture pattern taxonomy across all projects
• Context management strategies compared
• Tool system design patterns
• Security posture evaluation
• Anti-pattern catalog with evidence
• "Build from scratch" recommendations
• Safety & security postures
• "If I Were Building an Agent Today" synthesis

Read the full comparison →

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What Makes This Different

Other "awesome" lists	This repo
Curate links and descriptions	Dissect repos
"What they use"	Why they chose it
Overview metrics	Architecture diagrams + trade-off analysis
High-level overviews	Detailed engineering analysis with code references
Praise everything	Reveal engineering decisions and trade-offs

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Each Teardown Includes

• Architecture diagrams - Mermaid + hand-drawn style PNGs showing component relationships
• Detailed analysis - security posture, architecture trade-offs, code quality observations
• Core innovation analysis - what the project does that nobody else does
• Code-level references - file paths + line numbers for every claim
• Cross-project comparison table - how it stacks up against alternatives
• "Stuff Worth Stealing" - patterns other projects should adopt
• Verification log - every factual claim fact-checked against source code
• Easter eggs and hidden details - the stuff you'd only find reading every file

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Knowledge Base

Beyond individual teardowns, we maintain cross-cutting analysis:

• COMPARISON.md - Side-by-side comparison across all 16 projects
• CROSS-CUTTING.md - Patterns, anti-patterns, and architectural trends
• knowledge/ - Structured knowledge base: design patterns, anti-patterns, and project metadata

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Coming Next

• Crush (22K stars) - OpenCode's successor, built by the Charm team (Bubble Tea)
• Aider (36K stars) - Git-native AI pair programming, Python
• Continue (28K stars) - Open-source AI IDE extension, TypeScript
• Cursor - the most controversial AI IDE (closed source, partial analysis)
• Windsurf - Codeium's AI IDE fork (closed source, partial analysis)

Have a project in mind? → Suggest a teardown

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Contributing

Found an error? Have a better analysis? PRs welcome.

• Fix factual errors
• Add missing architecture details
• Suggest projects to teardown → Open an Issue
• Help translate teardowns

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Stay Updated

New teardown every Tuesday.

Subscribe to AI Anatomy Newsletter -- the full analysis, delivered to your inbox. Free.

Follow @Neuzhou_ on X -- teardown highlights + AI agent commentary.

Star to bookmark this repo. Watch > Releases to get GitHub notifications when new teardowns drop.

16 deep-dives published so far. The next batch is already in progress.

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Legal Notice

These teardowns are independent technical commentary for educational purposes under fair use (criticism, commentary, and education). Analysis of proprietary products is based on publicly available information including published npm packages, source maps, and documentation. No source code from analyzed projects is hosted in this repository - only short citations for commentary.

Project names and trademarks belong to their respective owners. Star counts and metrics are snapshots at time of writing. Analysis may contain errors - please verify claims against current source code.

For takedown requests, please open an issue with specific concerns.

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16 projects dissected. Updated weekly.