{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://numergent.com/2026-05/IDE-unbundling.html",
  "path": "/2026-05/IDE-unbundling.html",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-20T07:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:cf6futaebyc2k4wgzsr4v42k/site.standard.publication/3mp2ewx43js2g",
  "tags": [
    "unbundling",
    "ides",
    "ai",
    "agents",
    "thesis",
    "musings",
    "composability"
  ],
  "textContent": "Hyeseong Kim, this morning:\n\n<blockquote class=\"bluesky-embed\" data-bluesky-uri=\"at://did:plc:gcvoltnxua4itl4rsauzfbu4/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmaygo7pic2m\" data-bluesky-embed-color-mode=\"system\"><p lang=\"en\">Disaggregated IDE:\n\nAs prompt-based coding agents become more popular, most other features of IDE rather than editing are also gradually being broken down into small purpose-built tool sets. It is self-fulfilling in that it can be built more effectively by coding agents.</p>&mdash; Hyeseong Kim (<a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/hyeseong.kim?ref_src=embed\">@hyeseong.kim</a>) <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/hyeseong.kim/post/3mmaygo7pic2m?ref_src=embed\">May 20, 2026</a></blockquote><script async src=\"https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\nThat's another case of cleanest unbundling wins, now playing out in developer tooling.\n\nThe IDE was a useful bundle when developers had to manually navigate text. It made sense that we would gradually bundle editor, multiple syntax highlighters, formatter, debugger, terminal, and git client in one space — gradual use developed muscle memory that saved hours of context-switching. \n\nAs soon as the agent does the navigating — not to mention a bunch of editing! — for you, the bundle has a harder time justifying the overhead of its existence.\n\nWhen each component becomes independently addressable and composable, the pieces that present clean surfaces can be picked up by agents. If the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it, agentic development does the same with monoliths that demand full control.\n\nMeanwhile, VSCode has been helpfully demonstrating what the failure mode looks like:\n\n<blockquote class=\"bluesky-embed\" data-bluesky-uri=\"at://did:plc:gxgpo2jdvpvc4quze2ctj3il/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkvqyjtlqc25\" data-bluesky-embed-color-mode=\"system\"><p lang=\"en\">Not that anyone needs yet another reason to steer clear of Microsoft, but VSCode now adds Copilot as a co-author of all your commits, regardless if you used Copilot. This was added silently as a default. This is some next level insanity.</p>&mdash; Zi (<a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/majormcdoom.bsky.social?ref_src=embed\">@majormcdoom.bsky.social</a>) <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/majormcdoom.bsky.social/post/3mkvqyjtlqc25?ref_src=embed\">May 3, 2026</a></blockquote><script async src=\"https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>\n\nA silent default merged in a pull request, adding a Co-authored-by: Copilot trailer to every commit, whether you had used it or not.\n\nWay to not read the room.\n\nMicrosoft walked it back after the room screamed bloody murder, but why would you think that it was OK to ship that at all in the first place?  This is not sent from my iPhone.\n\nEasy explanation: If bundling things together is your main reason to exist, then it makes sense that the knee-jerk would be to bundle even more things, even if you end up being the Godrick The Grafted of developer tools.  Whatever internal Copilot adoption metric drove that decision clearly overruled people’s memory of how Godrick ended up.\n\nThe IDE will get unbundled. If we are lucky, we’ll end up with a clean set of swappable primitives from different providers, instead of a bunch of seemingly independent parts from a single source waiting to be superglued together.\n\nI’d already called the time of death — this was merely the autopsy.\n\n<blockquote class=\"bluesky-embed\" data-bluesky-uri=\"at://did:plc:cf6futaebyc2k4wgzsr4v42k/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkxx5fbqvk27\" data-bluesky-cid=\"bafyreif4onsolh5rcgo7gwu74jki3y72iskywoj5c4x7iyuxnael3km4sm\" data-bluesky-embed-color-mode=\"system\"><p lang=\"en\">You had a good run for a while there, @vscode.dev \n\nTime comes for us all.<br><br><a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:cf6futaebyc2k4wgzsr4v42k/post/3mkxx5fbqvk27?ref_src=embed\">[image or embed]</a></p>&mdash; Ricardo J. Méndez (<a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:cf6futaebyc2k4wgzsr4v42k?ref_src=embed\">@ricardo.bsky.social</a>) <a href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:cf6futaebyc2k4wgzsr4v42k/post/3mkxx5fbqvk27?ref_src=embed\">May 3, 2026 at 10:01 PM</a></blockquote><script async src=\"https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"></script>",
  "title": "IDE unbundling"
}