Testing out Crush, a TUI based coding agent (grahamhelton.com)

I tested Crush, Charm’s TUI coding agent, by building a small tool to generate per-page Open Graph images for a static site. The workflow: read YAML frontmatter from each markdown post, generate an HTML page styled like an old-school press release (using the site’s CSS), render it to PNG, and save it as the og:image — all integrated into the site’s build script. Crush made the task fast: about 45 minutes versus the hours it likely would’ve taken by hand, and produced a working, familiar TUI experience (diff list, changed-files tracking, model/cost display, and handy ctrl-p quick model switching). I used Sonnet-4 for the heavy lifting and Gemini Flash for edits; the run cost was $23.04. The broader significance is Crush’s model-agnostic, local-friendly approach and its developer-focused TUI UX. Unlike closed tools that lock you to a provider, Crush lets you pick models (including the potential to plug in local GPUs), see per-task costs, and iterate inside Neovim with a side pane (though the author noted some visual bugs and a jarring diff UI with certain themes). Tradeoffs are cost and scale: third-party platforms like Cursor can undercut per-query expenses via heavy optimization and partnerships, but Crush gives control and transparency — ideal for smaller, non‑critical automation and homelab workflows until self-hosted GPUs make larger tasks economical.