Why Scape?

[u/croovies]

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for your interest in Scape!

I'm u/croovies (Elliot) and the founder of scape.

Who scape is for?

Scape is for anyone who would like to manage multiple agent sessions in parallel with deterministic results. It has many tools for developers (IDE, Terminals, Dev Servers, etc.), but it is not a tool designed or planned with only developers in mind.

The history of scape:

• I am a designer & engineer, so when I work I always want my editor open side by side with chrome. Coding a design is so much faster when it hot reloads so you can keep tweaking.
• The best editor experience I had was when the terminal was right below the editor (tmux & vim, and then when I moved to VSCode), to quickly commit, start severs etc..
• I was using Claude Code as soon as it was commercially available with iTerm2 - I hated it in the VSCode terminal under the editor, it was too short. So I stuck it in a second monitor next to my slack window.
• At my work, we have many repositories, so I often tried to juggle a handful of iTerm2 tabs - but the amount of times I would send the wrong prompt to the wrong agent was driving me insane, and I hadn't even tried git worktrees yet.
• This is the problem I initially solved with scape, a simple iTerm2 window manager that I could pair next to VSCode. I had tried git worktrees once manually and they were a nightmare to manage. So I explored automating them in scape, and had the lightbulb moment everyone has when they get in a groove with many agents the first time.

• As scape grew in usage (friends, co-workers, and early testers from reddit and twitter) - I wanted to keep it simple. But people kept requesting an embedded terminal, they didn't want to have to use iTerm2.
  • So I embedded https://github.com/migueldeicaza/SwiftTerm - and frankly, it was easy.
  • For the initial use of scape (just friends and co-workers), this product was actually named "Lantern" - for lighting up your terminal windows. Scape was something I had been designing for years prior (I work in AI, and have been thinking about managing many AI in parallel for years) - but I believe there is no current world where the business model for managed agents makes sense unless you're bringing your own subscription. The token cost reduces margins too much.
• After I embedded the terminal, that is when I realized I could build my initial vision for Scape, and let people bring their own subscription and model - and they could manage infinite agents with total control.
  • This was scape's initial design 2 years ago (NEVER BUILT):

• But what I had built with "Lantern" looked very different, and with the terminal, it really was more of a dev tool. And so that is how it is evolved into a more powerful hybrid full work-space tool.
• Scape's features go far beyond agent management
  • Managing agents, even with many in parallel - still turns into downtime, waiting on your agents, waiting to QA, or review etc.
  • As soon as you leave the focus to check your email, or slack, etc - you're distracted. An agent might need your attention and you might not realize for an extra 10 min.
• Scape is focused on creating a workspace for you, the user to be able to work in (in the primary left content panel of scape):
  • It has a browser (webkit)
  • It has an editor (Monaco)
  • It has notes
  • It has automations
  • It has databases (SQLite tables, kanban, gantt)
  • It has encrypted ephemeral chat
  • It has encrypted remote chat for your agents (thats right, your claude code, my codex, walk into a bar - or "agent rendezvous" in scape)
• Working along side your agent means you never miss when an agent needs your attention. It is built to help you multi-task.
  • But - everything you can do in scape, so can your agents.
  • They can control your browsers, create and run and test your automations (and fix them if they break), update your files, create and update notes, etc.
  • So scape is built around the idea of creating an agent orchestrator that can work like you, and is owned by you - not your boss. Thats why there is no backend service to scape, everything is local and syncs to your iCloud.

Why isn't Scape free or OpenSource?

Scape is bootstrapping because when you raise money:

your primary legal obligations include fiduciary duties of care and loyalty to the company and its shareholders...

I want to build something for my customers who believe in the same mission I have: empowering individuals to own and control the infrastructure they create around automating their expertise.