I Accidentally Rebuilt OpenHands from Scratch – Here's What I Learned (huggingface.co)

A developer recently shared their experience of inadvertently creating a framework for multi-tenant AI coding agents called "Omniagents," which they discovered closely resembles the more established OpenHands framework. While initially unaware of OpenHands, the developer spent weeks building a solution featuring isolated environments and session persistence for AI agents that respond to user-defined coding tasks. This hands-on approach resulted in a deeper understanding of underlying mechanisms and costs associated with AI coding agents, equipping them to make informed adaptations for specific use cases. The Omniagents library comprises around 2,000 lines of Python code containing framework-agnostic tools for file management and command execution, allowing developers to swap backends, such as Docker or cloud sandboxes, without altering agent logic. This journey highlights significant implications for the AI/ML community: developing custom solutions can yield a greater grasp of technical intricacies compared to using off-the-shelf products. The developer identified key challenges in existing frameworks around state management and user isolation, leading to the creation of a toolset that addresses these issues. The core insight involves providing a unique backend for each user, enhancing both security and persistence, which is crucial for real-world applications where users expect to resume work. Although OpenHands serves as an all-encompassing product, Omniagents offers the modular flexibility necessary for building tailored solutions within broader AI systems.