A minimalist, collaborative code editor for interviews. Try it out here: livecoding.marnikitta.com
There are many editors for coding interviews. However, when I started looking for one, they all came bloated with features I didn't need: compilers, code completion, prepackaged exercises, and now AI assistants. So, I built one. It has two features: collaborative editing and code highlighting — nothing more.
The project was inspired by code.yandex-team.ru.
I tried to minimize build steps and dependencies, so I used Vue.js without *.vue files. Check out Julia Evans’ article
on Writing JavaScript without a build system.
For CSS and HTML layout and design, I drew inspiration from 37signals.com. Their site was built without build systems, and the source code is clean and readable.
Collaborative editing is implemented from scratch using a CRDT Replicated Growable Array algorithm. See Bartosz Sypytkowski's primer on CRDTs.
The backend is written in Python with FastAPI. It serves static files and handles WebSocket connections.
- npm for frontend dependencies
- Poetry for Python dependency management
- Python 3.12 or higher
- Make for build and install scripts
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Install prerequisites
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Run the application
make runThis command installs dependencies, builds the frontend, and starts the backend server. The server will be available
at http://localhost:5000.
The Python backend serves static files from the frontend directory, so no separate frontend server is needed.
If you want to apply changes to the frontend in real time, run:
make watch-frontendThis command will start a watcher that updates frontend/public/bundle.js on-the-fly.
livecoding.marnikitta.com is deployed on a VPS. The backend service is managed by systemd. I followed Writing a systemd Service in Python article. The frontend is served via nginx. It also acts as a reverse proxy for the backend. HTTPS is provided by Let's Encrypt.
This setup is inspired by How I run my servers article.
nginx configuration and unit file are not included in this repository.
To build the frontend for production:
make build-frontendIt will create a minified frontend/public/bundle.js.