From IDE to ADE, from editor to control room

I fell in love with Cursor. After about three months of heavy use, I added up what it had cost me: almost CZK 23,000. I didn’t leave because it didn’t work. I left because spending that much wasn’t sustainable.

I started looking for a cheaper way to keep working the same way. I switched to a Claude subscription and the Claude Code plugin for VS Code. I also tried Zed and Windsurf. To my surprise, it worked really well. I could have multiple agents working on several projects.

Three agents, three projects, one File Explorer

I could have several windows open with Claude Code. Each had a different agent running, each working on a different project. But the File Explorer in each window still showed just one project.

There were ways around it. I could open the parent folder, create a multi-root workspace, or simply get used to having more windows. But I was no longer looking for another workaround in the editor. I was looking for a way to manage projects.

Around the same time, I started using the OpenCode Go subscription and the OpenCode agent. Two things appealed to me: it was open source and provider-agnostic.

That’s when I realized I wasn’t looking for another IDE with a plugin. I wanted an app that put agents first.

What I wanted from a new environment

In March, I bought a mini PC and turned it into a headless Linux server. My Windows laptop became the control panel; the agents themselves could keep running on the server after I closed the laptop. So my requirements were different from what I’d expect of a regular editor:

• management of both local and remote projects,
• open-source code,
• independence from a single model provider,
• a File Explorer for each project,
• multiple agents in one project,
• integrated Git, branches, and worktrees,
• support for multiple GitHub accounts,
• an integrated browser,
• a file editor, because sometimes it’s quicker to fix a sentence by hand.

The term ADE is starting to appear for tools like these. Warp and ctx expand it as Agentic Development Environment. It isn’t a consistently defined category yet, but the direction is the same: an IDE centers on the open file, while an ADE centers on work in progress across projects, agents, and worktrees.

Emdash: the first environment that made sense

In June, I came across Emdash. It was open source, wasn’t tied to a single agent, and could open as many projects side by side as I needed. That was exactly the overview I’d been missing in VS Code.

On the server, agents ran in tmux sessions. I could close the laptop, leave the work running, and return to the same session later.

But I kept looking. In the version of Emdash I was using at the time, you couldn’t create a new file in the File Explorer. Either an agent had to create it, or I had to do it in the terminal. Mobile access bothered me more. My projects lived on the server, but on my phone I accessed them through mobile terminals, Termux and Termius. That was enough for an emergency fix. It wasn’t a way to pick up where I’d left off.

Orca: a proper ADE

In early August, I started using Orca ADE alongside Emdash. Orca is also open source and works with different CLI agents.
It also had exactly what I’d been missing: a full File Explorer, a file editor, and a mobile app with the same projects and running sessions.

The biggest difference wasn’t a single feature. It was how the work carried over from one step to the next. I can open Markdown files, websites, or code, comment on a specific spot, and send that comment to an agent with one click. The interface shows the five-hour and weekly limits for my Claude, Codex, and OpenCode subscriptions. Session history, artifact sharing, automations, an integrated browser, Git, and worktrees are all within reach.

The Orca CLI and an orchestration skill took things a step further. Through the Orca CLI, one agent can open another project, create an agent inside it, send it a task, and read the result. I no longer have to go from window to window. I just message my main agent, whom I call FirstBuddy, and it checks the status of my projects and assigns the next tasks. The interface went from an editor to a control room.

That’s the difference between an IDE and an ADE for me. An IDE helps me edit the project I currently have open. An ADE helps me manage work that keeps going across several projects, even after I close the laptop.

Cursor taught me to work with an agent. Emdash was the first to show me all my projects side by side. Orca turned them into one working system.