developerbeginner

Starter coder

The smallest useful coding agent. One Sonnet brain, filesystem with the read-before-edit guard, shell access scoped to your workspace. Skip this one if you want sub-agent dispatch, jump to the Claude Code clone.

lines 24cost ~$0.10 per sessioninstall hub://digitorn/starter-coder

Install in one command

digitorn install hub://digitorn/starter-coder

What you get

An agent you can chat with from your terminal
Read, write, edit, grep, glob across the cwd
Bash access scoped to the workspace
Read-before-edit guard, no silent corruption

Credentials this template uses

Anthropic Claude

Click each one for the credential setup command, scope guidance, and provider details.

The full YAML, ready to fork

app.yaml

1app:2  app_id: starter-coder3  name: "Starter coder"4  version: "1.0.0"5  description: "Minimal coding agent."6  category: "developer-tools"78execution:9  mode: conversation10  entry_agent: main1112modules:13  filesystem:14    config:15      max_file_kb: 204816      read_before_edit: true17  shell:18    config:19      shell: bash20      allowed_roots:21        - "{{cwd}}"22        - "{{home}}"2324agents:25  - id: main26    role: coordinator27    brain:28      provider: anthropic29      model: claude-sonnet-4-630      credential:31        ref: anthropic_main32        scope: per_user33        provider: anthropic34      config:35        api_key: "{{env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY}}"   # dev fallback36      temperature: 0.237      max_tokens: 819238    system_prompt: |39      You are a focused coding assistant. Read files before editing.40      Run tests after non-trivial changes. Be terse.

How it works

filesystem with read_before_edit

The guard rejects Edit calls on files the session has not yet read. Catches the most common 'AI deleted my code' failure mode without any extra wiring.

shell scoped via allowed_roots

Bash commands resolve their cwd against an allow-list. Outside the list and the runtime returns an error. Defaults to the workspace plus user home plus temp dir.

credential block + dev fallback

Production reads the API key from the encrypted vault. Dev mode falls back to ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in your .env. Both work, the credential block is preferred.

Read the deep dive

How to build a Claude Code clone in YAML

Read article

Newsletter

Get the next post in your inbox.

Engineering notes from the Digitorn team. No marketing, no launch announcements, no "10 prompts that will change your life". Just the things we write that we'd want to read.

Other templates

developerClaude Code clone/templates/claude-code-clone researchDeep research agent/templates/deep-research messagingSlack helper/templates/slack-helper developerPull request reviewer/templates/pr-reviewer opsWeekly digest reporter/templates/weekly-digest knowledgeDocumentation generator/templates/doc-writer creativeLive React app builder/templates/react-builder messagingVoice assistant/templates/voice-assistant opsScheduled data pipeline/templates/data-pipeline