POLYTONEide
Every AI IDE bolts a model onto a text editor. POLYTONEide inverts this: we own the language, the compiler, the formats, and the runtime — the IDE is a verification loop with a human window.
The verified loop
You write an intent — “add a fade between scenes 2 and 3”, “the tests for empty lists are missing” — and ✦ Generate turns it into a change-set: plan, minimal context, generation, local check and tests in the sandboxed wasm runtime, verified diff.
Unverified output never interrupts you. A failed candidate goes back around the bounded repair loop with the teaching error as the whole repair prompt — repair rounds cost tens of tokens, not thousands. Media documents verify by rendering: a .pti that does not render fails exactly like a module that does not compile.
Bring your own key
Configure your provider under ⚙: Anthropic, OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint — including local models. Model calls go straight from your browser to your provider; no server of ours is in the loop, and your key never leaves this machine except toward the provider you configured.
We never resell tokens. You pay your provider for tokens — and POLYTONEide for needing fewer of them. The token ledger in the corner shows what every change cost; it is UI, not telemetry.
License keys, offline
A Pro key has the form PTPRO.<payload>.<signature> — an ECDSA P-256 signature the app verifies offline against an embedded public key. No account, no activation server, no phoning home: paste the key under ⚙, the signature either verifies or it does not.
Hosted checkout launches with POLYTONEide 1.0 (Sprint 62) — until then Pro keys are issued manually. Removing the key returns you to Free; nothing else changes, and nothing is lost.
Telemetry: none
The ledger is local. Projects live in your browser (IndexedDB) or your local folder; intents, diffs, and token counts stay on your machine. The only network traffic the workbench produces is browser → your provider.
The measured numbers
What does one edit request ship to the model? The context slice the verified loop actually sends, versus a file-context baseline (every project file plus the sources of direct stdlib imports). Characters are exact and CI-gated; tokens measured with cl100k_base.
| Scenario | Slice (tokens) | Baseline (tokens) | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| small-app (2 files, no stdlib) | 264 | 226 | 0.9× — a wash |
| multi-module (5 modules) | 377 | 402 | 1.1× |
| stdlib-media (imports images) | 2 021 | 15 340 | 7.6× fewer tokens |
The honest reading: a two-file toy is a wash. The slice pays off exactly where context grows — the moment a program imports a real module, the baseline hauls the whole implementation while the slice ships its signatures: 2,021 tokens instead of 15,340, per request, every request. On top, the frozen language card reads from the provider's prompt cache after the first request.
Free and Pro
The gate is honest by design: Free is the whole verified loop — it must be good enough to prove the token numbers. Pro is the economics on top.
- The whole verified loop: intent → verified diff
- BYO key: Anthropic, OpenAI, compatible/local
- Media-native editing with live previews
- The token ledger — local, always
- The last 10 intents in the history
- Cheap/strong model routing — failed cheap attempts never cost strong tokens
- Session export and replay — sessions are code
- The full intent history
Pricing
The honest math: you pay your provider for tokens and POLYTONEide for needing fewer of them. If the ledger cannot demonstrate savings well above the subscription price, the product is not ready to charge — the price is validated against exactly that before launch.
The whole verified loop, forever — Free is the demo that proves the numbers.
Intended price, validated before launch. Routing, session export/replay, the full history — hosted checkout at launch; until then keys are issued manually.
Shared registries, shared ledgers, seats — after the product earns it.
Early access
The workbench runs at /app/ behind the early-access password — enter it once and the unlock sticks to your browser. No password? The launch announcement lands here and in the changelog first.