5 ms·

Show HN: Tambo Add A Cursor style assistant for React apps (OSS, self-hosted)

11 points by grouchy 1y ago

Hi HN-- Tambo is a React SDK that lets your app render and control UI components based on natural language input. We are hooked on Cursor and want all our apps (Stripe, Vercel, GitHub) to have the same experience. I should be able to type `update env key` and get a UI to add it. Tambo lets an AI assistant render or update the state of registered React components. It can fetch context via MCP (Model Context Protocol) or client-side fetches (similar to OpenAI tool calls). The SDK handles streaming messages and prop updates, maintains thread history, and passes context across turns. It’s BYOM (Bring Your Own Model) and works with Next.js, Remix, Vite, and React Native. If you’re building a “Cursor for X” (spreadsheets, video, design, etc.), check it out. Yesterday, we went 100% open source. Docs: https://docs.tambo.co https://docs.tambo.co GitHub: https://tambo.co/gh https://tambo.co/gh — Michael x2, Alec, Akhilesh

snkashis 1y ago
Talked to these guys a couple months ago - docs are really nice and easy to understand - gonna watch this one. I think they solve a lot of the boilerplate problems for composable/disposable UIs
- grouchy 1y ago
  Thanks! We have spent a considerable amount of time on the documents. It's the front-end of a developer product! There is so much more to do on the front of managing composable and disposable (I use the term 'ephemeral,' but maybe that's too highbrow).
nermalcat69 1y ago
Personally, It Feels like this will change the whole ai assistant industry the way chatgpt and claude. But again it requires multiple examples the way vercel did it for themselves at vercel.com/templates. Even perplexity, scira work with beautiful ui generation for visualizing data to the user but they have to do it manually as far as i know. I'm currently building coldran.com to compete with customer chatbots but with better experience and how customers can interact with teams to get better experience and features as fast as possible. But I'm genuinely curious why would anyone use this instead of building their own unique ui because of branding reasons other than that this seems cool. Internal Dashboard Chatbots can allow people to interact with some api endpoints which other components use within the website with a prompt and then the ui appears ~ that would be cool like creation of projects or changing the git connection from one repo to another without changing the pages. but this has a market but people are clueless about the usage ps: i haven't used tambo at the moment but this is very cool
- grouchy 1y ago
  Hi, thanks for the feedback. Good luck with Coldran. To answer this question: > why would anyone use this instead of building their own unique ui 0. Under our component library is tambo-ai/react, which are just React hooks, so you could build your UI from scratch (we had a user do this over a weekend). They apologized, "sorry I didn't use your ui components". 1. Most of our components are just for managing sending messages, showing chat state, etc. The rendered or intearcted with components are up to the developer and often pulled from their existing app (chart, forms, tables, etc.) and styling is up to them. 2. All of those provided UI components are the “copy and paste” model (like shadcn). You can easily update their styles to match your UI or customize them by simply changing the tambo.css file we add to your project. > Internal Dashboard Chatbots can allow people to interact with some api endpoints which other components use within the website with a prompt and then the ui appears ~ that would be cool like creation of projects or changing the git connection from one repo to another without changing the pages. We have this experience inside our dashboard https://tambo.co/dashboard https://tambo.co/dashboard you should try it!
  - nermalcat69 1y ago
    Thanks grouchy will look forward to using tambo for my stuff :)
ananddtyagi 1y ago
This seems like where most apps will be headed. A mix of specific components and dynamic UIs. I think it could be specifically useful in cases were there's less screen real estate so that's cool that it connects to React Native. Super cool, will give it a try!
- grouchy 1y ago
  I agree with the screen real estate thing. One example I often give is a salesperson out on the road. They could talk to their CRM app: "Add note to Joe we talked about his son going to college...also he's interested in getting a new tractor...he mentioned his buddy stan is looking at tractors." The app will generate UI components inline: Add Note (with generated note to approve/edit). Add Opportunity (with SKUs filtered to tractors, but needs the user to select which tractor--since the user didn't say) New Contact (with name generated and linked to Joe, but has some ui elements left blank for the user to enter, contact, company name etc.) We are already seeing this play out in the developer tool space with OpenAI Codex, Claude Code github actions, etc.
umate 1y ago
This is very cool! I found this template from the Vercel team to be really useful - https://vercel.com/templates/next.js/nextjs-ai-chatbot https://vercel.com/templates/next.js/nextjs-ai-chatbot. I am curious how you think about the ShadCN vs SDK approach - copy/paste intro your project vs import a 3rd party module?
- grouchy 1y ago
  We have a very similar model! The biggest differentiator from the NextJS/AISDK chatbot is that we have better support for interactive React components. If you visit our landing page, you can see a demo: https://tambo.co https://tambo.co Our demo chat has an Email component registered clientside that the assistant can render; it also utilizes tamboState hooks to pass the state back into the chat history. There are a few other differences, but that is one of the bigger ones.
actual_ethan 1y ago
Big believer in giving AI as much freedom as possible to make its own decisions and this definitely fits in nicely. The DX seems very nice as well
- grouchy 1y ago
  Thanks! We often hear that people can spin up a demo of an AI assistant with MCP and their existing components in a few hours. One person gave a demo to the entire eng team after a weekend!
realcoderhema 1y ago
when I first found out about this knew a lot will be possible with is, generative Ui is great, but can be better, tambo really fits this shoe, and i am looking forward to its great achievements and improvements (now that it's opensource)
ermainz 1y ago
Looks very useful as I'm exploring ways to make the applications that I work on more dynamic.
dibbaa-code 1y ago
I like how this is not just adding a chat bot but also enabling tool calling. I really need all the applications to become like cursor.
- grouchy 1y ago
  Ofc needs tool calling and graphical UI. This isn't 1997.
byebyebyebye 1y ago
Dynamic UI components are sorely needed with the proliferation of chat tools. In comparison with text output, a graphic interface/display conveys much more information quicker.

11 points by grouchy 1y ago

snkashis 1y ago

Talked to these guys a couple months ago - docs are really nice and easy to understand - gonna watch this one. I think they solve a lot of the boilerplate problems for composable/disposable UIs

grouchy 1y ago
Thanks! We have spent a considerable amount of time on the documents. It's the front-end of a developer product! There is so much more to do on the front of managing composable and disposable (I use the term 'ephemeral,' but maybe that's too highbrow).

nermalcat69 1y ago

Personally, It Feels like this will change the whole ai assistant industry the way chatgpt and claude. But again it requires multiple examples the way vercel did it for themselves at vercel.com/templates. Even perplexity, scira work with beautiful ui generation for visualizing data to the user but they have to do it manually as far as i know. I'm currently building coldran.com to compete with customer chatbots but with better experience and how customers can interact with teams to get better experience and features as fast as possible. But I'm genuinely curious why would anyone use this instead of building their own unique ui because of branding reasons other than that this seems cool. Internal Dashboard Chatbots can allow people to interact with some api endpoints which other components use within the website with a prompt and then the ui appears ~ that would be cool like creation of projects or changing the git connection from one repo to another without changing the pages. but this has a market but people are clueless about the usage ps: i haven't used tambo at the moment but this is very cool

grouchy 1y ago
Hi, thanks for the feedback. Good luck with Coldran. To answer this question: > why would anyone use this instead of building their own unique ui 0. Under our component library is tambo-ai/react, which are just React hooks, so you could build your UI from scratch (we had a user do this over a weekend). They apologized, "sorry I didn't use your ui components". 1. Most of our components are just for managing sending messages, showing chat state, etc. The rendered or intearcted with components are up to the developer and often pulled from their existing app (chart, forms, tables, etc.) and styling is up to them. 2. All of those provided UI components are the “copy and paste” model (like shadcn). You can easily update their styles to match your UI or customize them by simply changing the tambo.css file we add to your project. > Internal Dashboard Chatbots can allow people to interact with some api endpoints which other components use within the website with a prompt and then the ui appears ~ that would be cool like creation of projects or changing the git connection from one repo to another without changing the pages. We have this experience inside our dashboard https://tambo.co/dashboard https://tambo.co/dashboard you should try it!
- nermalcat69 1y ago
  Thanks grouchy will look forward to using tambo for my stuff :)

ananddtyagi 1y ago

This seems like where most apps will be headed. A mix of specific components and dynamic UIs. I think it could be specifically useful in cases were there's less screen real estate so that's cool that it connects to React Native. Super cool, will give it a try!

grouchy 1y ago
I agree with the screen real estate thing. One example I often give is a salesperson out on the road. They could talk to their CRM app: "Add note to Joe we talked about his son going to college...also he's interested in getting a new tractor...he mentioned his buddy stan is looking at tractors." The app will generate UI components inline: Add Note (with generated note to approve/edit). Add Opportunity (with SKUs filtered to tractors, but needs the user to select which tractor--since the user didn't say) New Contact (with name generated and linked to Joe, but has some ui elements left blank for the user to enter, contact, company name etc.) We are already seeing this play out in the developer tool space with OpenAI Codex, Claude Code github actions, etc.

umate 1y ago

This is very cool! I found this template from the Vercel team to be really useful - https://vercel.com/templates/next.js/nextjs-ai-chatbot https://vercel.com/templates/next.js/nextjs-ai-chatbot. I am curious how you think about the ShadCN vs SDK approach - copy/paste intro your project vs import a 3rd party module?

grouchy 1y ago
We have a very similar model! The biggest differentiator from the NextJS/AISDK chatbot is that we have better support for interactive React components. If you visit our landing page, you can see a demo: https://tambo.co https://tambo.co Our demo chat has an Email component registered clientside that the assistant can render; it also utilizes tamboState hooks to pass the state back into the chat history. There are a few other differences, but that is one of the bigger ones.

actual_ethan 1y ago

Big believer in giving AI as much freedom as possible to make its own decisions and this definitely fits in nicely. The DX seems very nice as well

grouchy 1y ago
Thanks! We often hear that people can spin up a demo of an AI assistant with MCP and their existing components in a few hours. One person gave a demo to the entire eng team after a weekend!

realcoderhema 1y ago

when I first found out about this knew a lot will be possible with is, generative Ui is great, but can be better, tambo really fits this shoe, and i am looking forward to its great achievements and improvements (now that it's opensource)

ermainz 1y ago

Looks very useful as I'm exploring ways to make the applications that I work on more dynamic.

dibbaa-code 1y ago

I like how this is not just adding a chat bot but also enabling tool calling. I really need all the applications to become like cursor.

grouchy 1y ago
Ofc needs tool calling and graphical UI. This isn't 1997.

byebyebyebye 1y ago

Dynamic UI components are sorely needed with the proliferation of chat tools. In comparison with text output, a graphic interface/display conveys much more information quicker.