storytold/craft-anything

What it covers

Craft Anything is a pure-Rust reverse-engineering and rebuilding engine. It inspects a website, desktop app, phone app, or game, records what it finds as evidence, then asks a coding agent to build a new project in a language or engine you specify. Each build is compared against the original and refined until the result is close. The same engine powers a desktop app (egui), a CLI, and an MCP server, so it can be used interactively or driven by an agent. No AI is required for inspection itself; AI is only needed for building.

The workflow has four stages: Study (pages at every width, code, files, runtime behavior), Build (a coding agent creates a new project), Check (compare against the original and list mismatches), and Ready (open, play, or preview, then request changes). A Simple mode hides the tooling behind a project page; an Advanced workbench exposes functions, pseudo-C, disassembly, call graphs, evidence, and logs.

Quick start

Building requires Rust 1.97 or newer and a signed-in coding agent; Claude Code is the first supported builder and runs your own unmodified claude program with your own sign-in details.

On Debian/Ubuntu, the desktop app also needs the GUI development packages listed in the README Get started:

sudo apt-get install libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev libx11-dev libxrandr-dev libxi-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libgtk-3-dev

Then clone, run the desktop app, install the CLI, and check the setup:

git clone https://github.com/storytold/craft-anything && cd craft-anything
cargo run --release -p craft-anything
cargo install --path apps/craft-anything-cli
craft-anything-cli doctor

doctor reports missing coding agents or engines. You can rebuild from the terminal instead of the GUI:

craft-anything-cli rebuild https://example.com "Recreate this website"
craft-anything-cli rebuild - "A snake game in Rust" --rounds 1

New projects go to Documents/Craft Anything by default and contain craft.json, capture/, app/, checks/, investigation.cany/, and inbox/. Prebuilt installers for Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD are listed in releases.

Clean room vs. Deep

Clean room is the default and refuses tools that read inside the original: no source code, files, or page source. It works from what a visitor can see—screenshots, visible text, measured layout, colors, fonts, and spacing—plus an allowed screenshot of an app window. Deep mode enables every tool, including reading a program's code and files, website JavaScript, and Ghidra when installed. Switch modes in the title bar or Settings, with settings_set deep_mode true, or per CLI run with --deep/--clean-room mode details.

Constraints and status

• The project is in early alpha. Desktop app, CLI, and MCP server work; building with API keys and non-Claude coding agents is implemented but not yet run live, and behavior checks for apps and games are partial status.
• Building needs a local coding agent signed in. The Codex adapter has not been verified on a real install; Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, and local OpenAI-compatible servers are available for questions and analysis.
• Generated pictures and 3D models are opt-in and need your own fal.ai key.
• Use it only on software you own or are allowed to examine; it does not bypass DRM, logins, or anti-cheat. The builder is told not to copy logos, photos, or text without permission.
• Licensed MIT or Apache-2.0; the ArtCraft name and logos are trademarked and must be removed from forks license and credits.

HotRepo's take

The one recorded entry for this project is a new-period snapshot on November 1, 2026 in the Rust language list: 111 stars and 14 forks, matching a repository created the previous day. With no all-language daily rank and only a single new-list snapshot, there is no time series to judge momentum from. What the record does show is that the initial attention went to a Rust project that ships a 284-tool inspection engine behind a desktop app, CLI, and MCP interface, so the engineering surface is broader than a typical alpha. Whether that attention turns into adoption depends on the parts the README itself marks as unverified.