Code Hangar

The local-first flight recorder for vibe coding.

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Inspiration

Vibe coding makes it easy to create many projects and hard to remember what an AI actually changed. The evidence is scattered across tool sessions, Git state, working files, caches, and project notes. People who most need an explanation are often least equipped to reconstruct that history safely.

What it does

Code Hangar is a Windows desktop control centre for retrospective AI-project review. It discovers local projects and AI sessions, builds a best-supported record of changes, labels incomplete evidence, and presents the source before any model explanation. The Connector edition exposes a body-limited, project-scoped MCP surface to ChatGPT, and other AI apps, and offers an optional AI Assist for local servers or a provider configured by the user. Secrets and Protected Zones are blocked before transport. Corrections are limited to a reviewed one-file surface with validation, snapshots, and restore.

How we built it

The application uses Tauri v2, Rust, React, TypeScript, SQLCipher, Windows DPAPI, and a feature-gated MCP sidecar over stdio. ChatGPT was the engineering collaborator during the eligible Build Week period: it audited the existing product and local delta, implemented bounded review/navigation and graph-safety improvements, added regressions, validated Local-versus-Connector isolation, and prepared judge evidence.

GPT-5.6 is demonstrated through MCP out: signed in with ChatGPT, queries Code Hangar's scoped local tools. A synthetic acceptance run completed through the final compiled Connector sidecar with gpt-5.6-sol, two audited Code Hangar reads, no API key, and no retained personal data. The separate AI-in path is the in-app provider adapter; its OpenAI GPT-5.6 request contract, disclosure, secret gate, and compatible-provider behavior are tested. A future ChatGPT app-server adapter is documented but is not claimed as shipped.

Challenges

The hardest problem was preserving epistemic and security boundaries. A model answer cannot become evidence for a missing edit. A connected app cannot gain cross-project visibility. The Local edition cannot merely hide network UI; provider and MCP code must be absent from its build. Mutation must remain behind fresh review, content-bound backup, and human approval. We also had to keep the Build Week delta honest because Code Hangar existed before the event.

Accomplishments

  • A review flow separating recorded facts, current state, and unknowns
  • GPT-5.6 consuming curated Code Hangar context through authenticated, scoped MCP using ChatGPT subscription access
  • Compile-time Local-versus-Connector isolation with automated dependency and frontend gates
  • Secret and Protected Zone blocking before any model transport
  • A reversible correction path with exact diff, validation, snapshot, and restore
  • Two reproducible Windows installer artifacts with recorded hashes
  • Exact host install, native launch, edition-isolation inspection, and uninstall validation

What we learned

The safest place for AI is after deterministic evidence, not instead of it. MCP creates a cleaner subscription story than copying credentials into an app: Code Hangar owns curation and authorization, while Codex owns ChatGPT authentication and model execution. Direct provider APIs remain an optional inbound route with a separate billing and trust boundary.

What's next

Sign the Windows installers; repeat the exact clean-install journey in a disposable supported Windows environment; productize the subscription-backed Codex app-server inbound bridge behind the Connector feature gate; and expand evidence adapters and platform coverage while preserving project-scoped, reversible safety.

Build Week disclosure

Code Hangar is a pre-existing project, made mainly with ChatGPT. The declared baseline is commit 843530c from 12 July 2026. The eligible Build Week comparison and privacy-sanitized public candidate are documented in BUILD_PERIOD_DELTA.md. The public candidate is an honest Windows x64 alpha: installers are unsigned previews, the primary live proof is subscription-backed GPT-5.6 through Code Hangar MCP, and the app-server inbound adapter is an extension path rather than a shipped feature.

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