Craft Anything is a free, open source app that studies a piece of software and then has an AI coding agent build you a new version of it. It's a quick way to see how an app you use every day is put together, and to end up with a project of your own that you can change however you like.
What Craft Anything is
Craft Anything comes from ArtCraft, which publishes its code under the storytold organisation on GitHub. Before this tool, ArtCraft released open source creative apps of its own, including PhotoCraft for image editing, FilmCraft for video editing and WordCraft for documents. In its launch post the team says Craft Anything is the tooling it used to make those first apps, now released for anyone to use.
The basics:
- It's written in Rust and runs as a desktop app, a command-line tool and an MCP server, so an agent can drive the same engine the app uses.
- It's dual-licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0, at your choice.
- There are installers for Windows, macOS, Linux and FreeBSD on its GitHub Releases page.
- The README marks it as early alpha: some parts work today and some are only partly there.
The repository went up on 31 October 2026 and passed 10,000 GitHub stars within its first few days. Interest is high, but the status badge still reads 'early alpha'.
How a rebuild works
Every project in the app's Simple mode moves through the same four steps: Study, Build, Check and Ready. The project page shows which one it's on, what the agent is doing in plain words, and cards for any question or approval it needs from you.
Picking a target
You start on the Make screen. It asks what you want to recreate (a website, an app or a game), then how closely Craft Anything may look at it, then what you want, in your own words. In the video Kitty picks an app, chooses the open source photo editor GIMP, adds a picture of its window and types 'Recreate this app'. The 'Built by' setting reads 'Automatic (Claude Code)'.
Here is the part of the Make screen that sets the target and the inspection mode:
Study
Study collects evidence about the original. For a website that means pages at several screen widths, visible text, measured layout, colours, fonts and spacing. For a desktop app in the default mode it means the pictures you add and, if you allow it, a picture of the app's window. This step needs no AI: it runs on Craft Anything's own inspection tools. In the video's run it was done within seconds.
Build
Build hands the evidence and your request to a coding agent, which writes a new project from scratch in the language, framework or engine you ask for, or a sensible default when you don't say. The new code goes in an app/ folder inside the project folder.
Check and Ready
Check compares the build with the original and lists what doesn't match yet. Websites are compared at three screen widths, and each page gets a score for how alike it is. The agent then refines the build and checks again. Ready means you can open, play or preview the result, or ask for more changes in the box at the bottom.
ArtCraft's own example from the README shows a website project at the Check stage. One check is still failing, each page has a likeness score, and the builder is asking permission before running a command:
Clean room or Deep
Before anything is built, you choose how much of the original Craft Anything is allowed to read.
Where the name comes from
Clean-room design is an old technique for rebuilding software without copying it. One team studies the original and writes down what it does. A second team, which has never seen the original code, builds a new version from that description alone, so what it writes is its own. The best-known case is the IBM PC's BIOS, which other companies reimplemented this way in the 1980s so they could sell compatible machines.
What Craft Anything's clean room does
Clean room is the default. In this mode nothing inside the original is read: not its code, not its files, not a website's page source. Craft Anything works only from what a person can see, and any tool that would look inside is refused, with a note on how to switch to Deep mode.
Deep mode turns every tool on. It reads a program's code and files with Craft Anything's built-in decoders, disassembler and decompiler (and Ghidra, if it's installed), and reads a website's JavaScript. The app labels it 'for your private use'.
The README spells out a limit here. Clean room is a rule about which tools Craft Anything offers and refuses. It isn't an operating-system sandbox. The coding agent you run still acts as you, and what it can read, write or run depends on that agent's own permissions.
Where Claude Code fits
Craft Anything doesn't ship its own AI model. Building needs a coding agent installed on your computer, and Claude Code is the one it supports first. It runs your own, unmodified claude program in headless mode, signed in with your own account. Craft Anything says it never sees or handles that account, and the usage falls under your own agreement with Anthropic.
The agent works inside limits Craft Anything sets. Edits inside the project's app/ folder and a fixed list of build commands, such as npm install and cargo build, are allowed. Dev servers are refused because they never exit. Anything else, such as another command or a web fetch, shows up as a card asking you to allow it once, always for this project, or not at all.
Support for other agents is behind. The README says a Codex adapter exists but hasn't been verified on a real install, and that building with other coding agents is built but not yet run live.
The REA claim
ArtCraft's launch post on Reddit is titled 'In response to Anthropic blocking REA we developed our own version that's not blocked called Craft Anything'. REA (Reverse Engineer Anything) is a popular reverse-engineering tool. The claim that Anthropic blocked it is ArtCraft's, and we haven't seen Anthropic confirm it. Either way, the builder Craft Anything supports first is Claude Code, under Anthropic's rules.
A worked example: rebuilding a photo editor
Here is what happened in the run recorded for the video, using GIMP as the target.
- On the Make screen: An app, GIMP, Clean room, one picture of GIMP's window, and the request 'Recreate this app'.
- After Start, Craft Anything made a new project folder,
Craft Anything/gimp, in the home folder. - Study finished within seconds, working from the picture, and Build started.
- The builder said it was setting up an image editor window like the one in the picture, then would build the layout and tools. Within a minute or two the
app/folder held a new Rust project, withsrc,Cargo.tomlandCargo.lock.
The progress card showed Study done and Build under way, with the clean-room note at the top of the status lines:
We stopped the build there. A full rebuild in the app runs the first build plus up to six refinement rounds, and every round uses your Claude usage. Each project folder also keeps a record of the work: craft.json with the request and history, capture/ with what was recorded from the target, checks/ with each comparison, and inbox/ for open questions.
When to use it, and when not
Craft Anything fits when you want to understand how a piece of software is laid out and behaves, or when you want a starting point for your own take on a tool: a simpler photo editor, a website in a different framework, a game in another engine. It can also work on a project folder you already have.
It fits less well when:
- you want a finished, polished replacement today. It's an early alpha, and behaviour checks for apps and games are only partly built.
- the software isn't yours to examine. The README asks you to use it only on software you own or are allowed to study, and says it never bypasses DRM, logins or anti-cheat.
- your Claude usage is tight, since building and refining is where the usage goes.
Clean room doesn't make copying branded material fine either. The agent is told not to copy logos, photos or text unless you confirm you own them or have permission.
Common mistakes
- Treating Clean room as a sandbox. It limits Craft Anything's tools, not your agent, so check the agent's own permissions as well.
- Choosing 'Always for this project' for npm too quickly. Installing dependencies runs code on your computer, and npm runs install scripts by default. Only allow it for projects whose dependencies you trust.
- Expecting a clone. In Clean room the build is a new app made from what was seen, and the checks will still list differences after a few rounds.
- Pointing it at software you aren't allowed to study. Having an app on your screen doesn't give you permission to rebuild it.
If you're new to how tools like this build things, the Building an AI Agent page covers the loop an agent runs, and Open Source covers what licences like MIT and Apache-2.0 let you do.
Key takeaways
- Craft Anything studies a website, app or game, has a coding agent build a new version, then compares the two and refines the build.
- Clean room, the default, works only from what you can see. Deep mode reads code and files, for private use.
- Claude Code is the first supported builder. It runs your own copy under your own Anthropic account, so rebuilds use your usage.
- ArtCraft says it built the tool in response to Anthropic blocking REA. That's ArtCraft's claim, not a confirmed fact.
- It's an early alpha, dual-licensed MIT or Apache-2.0. Use it on software you're allowed to study.
