Show HN: Codify – Terraform for Dev Environments

Configuration as code for developer machines.

The operation is similar to Terraform: plan + apply for making changes, and import + refresh for syncing system state back into the config. Codify operates statelessly, so no need to manage a state file. Just define what you need and apply it.

There is a web + desktop app, and AI agent to make Codify easier to use (paid with free tier). The apps come with a dedicated editor (auto-completion, blocks view, and collaboration). The agent works via Codify configs which avoids the problem of LLMs generating and applying raw shell commands directly.

We’re building Codify for three groups of people:

1. Beginners and students - It lowers the barrier of entry and introduces them to new languages, cool tools and agents, especially now with the advent of vibe-coding.

2. Software teams - It onboards new engineers quickly and ensures that everybody is on the same setup. It also helps more people to work cross-functionally (ex: backend and mobile)

3. Freelancers - Helps them manage multiple tech-stacks for different projects at once.

I personally found that it’s useful for setting up automation (openclaw for example) + managing two work computers at once.

Codify has an ecosystem of 50+ supported applications, settings and tools right now. New resources can be requested by creating an issue on GitHub, triggering our Claude action to pick it up. We review and test the code manually before merging (aiming for a turnaround time of 10 days). We run automated testing three times a week to catch drift. In light of the recent npm supply chain attacks, we won’t be hosting a registry for 3rd party plugins. Private custom plugins are possible.

The CLI and resource library are open source. Everything is available on MacOS, Linux and Windows (wsl)

Hope you get a chance to try out. Cheers - Kevin & Edmund