Show HN: Shoaku – Your Coding Navigator
Shoaku is a coding assistant that helps developers maintain understanding and confidence in their code while using AI. Unlike full autocomplete tools, it uses a background AI thread to provide navigation assistance without writing code directly, aiming to preserve the developer's learning and design comprehension process.
Background
- Shoaku (the project) is an IntelliJ IDEA plugin created by a solo developer (seachicken) who noticed that AI coding agents (like GitHub Copilot's Codex, Anthropic's Claude) erode a programmer's own understanding of the codebase.
- The core problem: AI writes complex code quickly, but the human can't explain *why* it works that way during code review — leading to embarrassment and loss of confidence and learning.
- Shoaku's twist: the AI does NOT write code directly into your project. Instead, it runs autonomously in a separate, temporary directory and then *navigates* you (the human) toward the implementation, leaving you to write the actual code yourself.
- This is a reaction to a growing concern in software engineering: AI boosts output speed but may degrade craftsmanship, code ownership, and deep understanding — especially for junior or solo developers.