9 ms·

I work on Bun. Happy to answer any questions

by Jarred 10mo ago

linkage 10mo ago
You said elsewhere that there were many suitors. What is the single most important thing about Anthropic that leads you to believe they will be dominant in the coming years?
- convenwis 10mo ago
  No idea about his feelings but believing that they will be dominant wouldn't have to be the reason he chose them. I could easily imagine that someone would decide based on (1) they offered enough money and (2) values alignment.
elktown 10mo ago
Is this acquihiring?
- simonw 10mo ago
  No. Anthropic need Bun to be healthy because they use it for Claude Code.
  - elktown 10mo ago
    But it seems like that could happen faster internally than publicly?
  - PetrBrzyBrzek 10mo ago
    I think it’s an acquihire, and they also like Bun.
    - gaws 10mo ago
      It's not an acqui-hire. Anthropic is keeping Bun.
  - tshaddox 10mo ago
    Isn't that still "acqui-hiring" according to common usage of the term? Sometimes people use the term to mean that the buyer only wants some/all of the employees and will abandon or shut down the acquired company's product, which presumably isn't the case here. But more often I see "acqui-hire" used to refer to any acquisition where the expertise of the acquired company are the main reason to the acquisition (rather than, say, an existing revenue stream), and the buyer intends to keep the existing team dynamics.
    - simonw 10mo ago
      Acquihiring usually means that the product the team are working on will be ended and the team members will be set to work on other aspects of the existing company.
      - tshaddox 10mo ago
        That is part of the definition given in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, but I think it’s a blurry line when the acquired company is essentially synonymous with a single open source project and the buyer wants the team of experts to continue developing that open source project.
        dcre 10mo ago
        No it isn’t. That’s not an acquihire. They’re keeping the product.
        tshaddox 10mo ago
        The team is continuing to develop the open source project that was synonymous with the company, but they're explicitly no longer going to try to monetize it. I think that squarely counts as an acquihire according to common usage.
- alexandre_m 10mo ago
  I consider this more of a strategic acquisition.
Skywalker13 10mo ago
Hi Jarred, I contributed to Bun one time for SQLite. I've a question about the licensing. Will each contributor continue to retain their copyright, or will a CLA be introduced? Thanks
- jasnell 10mo ago
  With Bun's existing OSS license and contribution model, all contributors retain their copyright and Bun retains the license to use those contributions. An acquisition of this kind cannot change the terms under which prior contributions were made without explicit agreement from all contributors. If Bun did switch to a CLA in the future, just like with any OSS project, that would only impact future contributions made after that CLA went into effect and it depends entirely on the terms established in that hypothetical CLA.
  - Skywalker13 10mo ago
    Hello, thank you, but that doesn't answer my question. I'm not asking for a definition, but for information about licensing decisions for the future of Bun.
jannes 10mo ago
Congrats on the payday :) Do you think Anthropic might request you implement private APIs?
- kyyol 10mo ago
  This is an interesting question; not to be too naive, but are there examples in the wild about this scenario? First I’ve heard of private APIs for something open source like this and my interest is piqued!
  - aiiizzz 10mo ago
    Vscode had private apis for copilot.
linkage 10mo ago
How much of your day-to-day is spent contributing code to the Bun codebase and do you expect it to decrease as Anthropic assigns more people to work on Bun?
msuniverse2026 10mo ago
Any thoughts on the claude "soul document" that was leaked this week?
genshii 10mo ago
Hi Jarred, thanks for all your work on Bun. I know that one thing you guys are working on or are at least aware of is the size of single-file executables. From a technical perspective, is there a path forward on this? I'm not familiar with Bun's internals, but in order to get the size down, it seems like you'd have to somehow split up/modularize Bun itself and potentially JavaScriptCore as well (not sure how big the latter is). That way only the things that are actually being used by the bundled code are included in the executable. Is this even possible? Is the difficulty on the Bun/Zig side of things, or JSC, or something else? Seems like a very interesting (and very difficult) technical problem.
fishmicrowaver 10mo ago
Yeah why are you not out on a boat somewhere enjoying this moment? Go have fun please.
- almosthere 10mo ago
  Acq's typically have additional stips you have to follow - they probably have new deadlines and some temporary stress for the next few months.
  - tylergetsay 10mo ago
    yes, acquisitions rarely result in an immediate cash payout.
brrrrrm 10mo ago
on Bun's website, the runtime section features HTTP, networking, storage -- all are very web-focused. any plans to start expanding into native ML support? (e.g. GPUs, RDMA-type networking, cluster management, NFS)
- Jarred 10mo ago
  Probably not. When we add new APIs in Bun, we generally base the interface off of popular existing packages. The bar is very high for a runtime to include libraries because the expectation is to support those APIs ~forever. And I can’t think of popular existing JS libraries for these things.
  - niutech 10mo ago
    TensorFlow.js?
atonse 10mo ago
One more thing I hope doesn't change, is the fun Release videos :-) I really enjoy them. They're very apple-y, and for just a programming tool.
losvedir 10mo ago
I'm sort of surprised to see that you used Claude Code so much. I had a vague idea that "Zig people" were generally "Software You Can Love" or "Handmade Software Movement" types, about small programs, exquisitely hand-written, etc, etc. And I know Bun started with an extreme attention to detail around performance. I would have thought LLM-generated code would run a bit counter to both of those. I had sort of carved the world into "vibe coders" who care about the eventual product but don't care so much about the "craft" of code, and people who get joy out of the actual process of coding and designing beautiful abstractions and data structures and all that, which I didn't really think worked with LLM code. But I guess not, and this definitely causes me to update my understanding of what LLM-generated code can look like (in my day to day, I mostly see what I would consider as not very good code when it comes from an LLM). Would you say your usage of Claude Code was more "around the edges", doing things like writing tests and documentation and such? Or did it actually help in real, crunchy problems in the depths of low level Zig code?
- vector_spaces 10mo ago
  I am not your target with this question (I don't write Zig) but there is a spectrum of LLM usage for coding. It is possible to use LLMs extensively but almost never ship LLM generated code, except for tiny trivial functions. One can use them for ideation, quick research, or prototypes/starting places, and then build on that. That is how I use them, anyway Culturally I see pure vibe coders as intersecting more with entrepreneurfluencer types who are non-technical but trying to extend their capabilities. Most technical folks I know are fairly disillusioned with pure vibe coding, but that's my corner of the world, YMMV
  - dijit 10mo ago
    fwiw, copilots licence only explicitly permits using its suggestions the way you say. putting everyone using the generated outputs into a sort of unofficial grey market: even when using first-party tools. Which is weird.
    - lupire 10mo ago
sktrdie 10mo ago
I've never personally used Bun. I use node.js I guess. What makes Bun fundamentally better at AI than, say, bundling a node.js app that can run anywhere? If the answer is performance, how does Bun achieve things quicker than Node?
- postepowanieadm 10mo ago
  Easier deployment, you may generate a single binary.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
420official 10mo ago
Does this acquisition preclude implementing an s3 style integration for AWS bedrock? Also is IMDSv2 auth on the roadmap?
rikafurude21 10mo ago
Any chance there will be some kind of updating mechanism for 'compiled' bun executables?
- Jarred 10mo ago
  I have a PR that’s been sitting for awhile that exposes the extra options from the renameat2 and renameatx_np syscalls which is a good way to implement self-updaters that work even when multiple processes are updating the same path on disk at the same time. These syscalls are supported on Linux & macOS but I don’t think there’s an equivalent on Windows. We use these syscalls internally for `bun install` to make adding packages into the global install cache work when multiple `bun install` processes are running simultaneously No high-level self updater api is planned right now, but yes for at least the low level parts needed to make a good one
asdfwaafsfw 10mo ago
"work on Bun." LOL. Congratulations.
stack_framer 10mo ago
Are you at liberty to divulge how much Anthropic paid for Bun?
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
urbandw311er 10mo ago
Hi Jarred. Congratulations on the acquisition! Did (or will) your investors make any profit on what they put into Bun?
tovazm 10mo ago
Thanks, Jarred. Seeing what you built with Bun has been a real inspiration, the way one focused engineer can shift an entire ecosystem. It pushed me back into caring about the lower-level side of things again, and I’m grateful for that spark. Congrats on the acquisition, and excited to see what’s next
franciscop 10mo ago
Amazing news, congrats! Been using Bun for a long while now and I love it. Is there anything I could do to improve this PR/get a review? I understand you are def very busy right now with the acquisition, but wanted to give my PR the best shot: https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/24514 https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/24514
hungryhobbit 10mo ago
Why can't you make CLI autocompletions work? It's so basic, but the ticket has languished for almost as long as bun has existed!
- Aeolun 10mo ago
  Because nobody (including you, apparently) cares enough to implement it?
djdjsjejb 10mo ago
how the helldid you got that og name here in hn asking the real questions
jrflowers 10mo ago
What happens to Bun in a scenario where Anthropic goes under?
Sincere6066 10mo ago
how can you sleep at night?
- gaws 10mo ago
  The money was too good to pass up.
cdelsolar 10mo ago
my wife and i call each other bun all the time, and it's really weird to see an article full of Buns
baxuz 10mo ago
What are your thoughts on using AI generated cartoons as your primary marketing material on social media? For instance https://xcancel.com/bunjavascript/status/1955893818529866055#m https://xcancel.com/bunjavascript/status/1955893818529866055...
PurpleRamen 10mo ago
What happened to the voxel game that kickstarted the idea of bun? Was it ever finished? How much did it benefit from bun?
gaws 10mo ago
Are contributors getting cash or Anthropic equity as part of the acquisition?
baby 10mo ago
I love Bun and use it daily, but I'm still very frustrated by all the configuration that one needs ATM when working in the js ecosystem. Do you guys see yourself integrating more and more, and moving more and more towards a "convention over configuration", to bring a more streamlined dev experience (that languages like Golang and Rust have, for example)

I work on Bun. Happy to answer any questions

by Jarred 10mo ago

I work on Bun. Happy to answer any questions

You said elsewhere that there were many suitors. What is the single most important thing about Anthropic that leads you to believe they will be dominant in the coming years?

convenwis 10mo ago
No idea about his feelings but believing that they will be dominant wouldn't have to be the reason he chose them. I could easily imagine that someone would decide based on (1) they offered enough money and (2) values alignment.

elktown 10mo ago

Is this acquihiring?

simonw 10mo ago
No. Anthropic need Bun to be healthy because they use it for Claude Code.
- elktown 10mo ago
  But it seems like that could happen faster internally than publicly?
- PetrBrzyBrzek 10mo ago
  I think it’s an acquihire, and they also like Bun.
  - gaws 10mo ago
    It's not an acqui-hire. Anthropic is keeping Bun.
- tshaddox 10mo ago
  Isn't that still "acqui-hiring" according to common usage of the term? Sometimes people use the term to mean that the buyer only wants some/all of the employees and will abandon or shut down the acquired company's product, which presumably isn't the case here. But more often I see "acqui-hire" used to refer to any acquisition where the expertise of the acquired company are the main reason to the acquisition (rather than, say, an existing revenue stream), and the buyer intends to keep the existing team dynamics.
  - simonw 10mo ago
    Acquihiring usually means that the product the team are working on will be ended and the team members will be set to work on other aspects of the existing company.
    - tshaddox 10mo ago
      That is part of the definition given in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, but I think it’s a blurry line when the acquired company is essentially synonymous with a single open source project and the buyer wants the team of experts to continue developing that open source project.
      - dcre 10mo ago
        No it isn’t. That’s not an acquihire. They’re keeping the product.
        tshaddox 10mo ago
        The team is continuing to develop the open source project that was synonymous with the company, but they're explicitly no longer going to try to monetize it. I think that squarely counts as an acquihire according to common usage.
alexandre_m 10mo ago
I consider this more of a strategic acquisition.

Skywalker13 10mo ago

Hi Jarred, I contributed to Bun one time for SQLite. I've a question about the licensing. Will each contributor continue to retain their copyright, or will a CLA be introduced? Thanks

jasnell 10mo ago
With Bun's existing OSS license and contribution model, all contributors retain their copyright and Bun retains the license to use those contributions. An acquisition of this kind cannot change the terms under which prior contributions were made without explicit agreement from all contributors. If Bun did switch to a CLA in the future, just like with any OSS project, that would only impact future contributions made after that CLA went into effect and it depends entirely on the terms established in that hypothetical CLA.
- Skywalker13 10mo ago
  Hello, thank you, but that doesn't answer my question. I'm not asking for a definition, but for information about licensing decisions for the future of Bun.

jannes 10mo ago

Congrats on the payday :) Do you think Anthropic might request you implement private APIs?

kyyol 10mo ago
This is an interesting question; not to be too naive, but are there examples in the wild about this scenario? First I’ve heard of private APIs for something open source like this and my interest is piqued!
- aiiizzz 10mo ago
  Vscode had private apis for copilot.

linkage 10mo ago

How much of your day-to-day is spent contributing code to the Bun codebase and do you expect it to decrease as Anthropic assigns more people to work on Bun?

msuniverse2026 10mo ago

Any thoughts on the claude "soul document" that was leaked this week?

genshii 10mo ago

Hi Jarred, thanks for all your work on Bun. I know that one thing you guys are working on or are at least aware of is the size of single-file executables. From a technical perspective, is there a path forward on this? I'm not familiar with Bun's internals, but in order to get the size down, it seems like you'd have to somehow split up/modularize Bun itself and potentially JavaScriptCore as well (not sure how big the latter is). That way only the things that are actually being used by the bundled code are included in the executable. Is this even possible? Is the difficulty on the Bun/Zig side of things, or JSC, or something else? Seems like a very interesting (and very difficult) technical problem.

fishmicrowaver 10mo ago

Yeah why are you not out on a boat somewhere enjoying this moment? Go have fun please.

almosthere 10mo ago
Acq's typically have additional stips you have to follow - they probably have new deadlines and some temporary stress for the next few months.
- tylergetsay 10mo ago
  yes, acquisitions rarely result in an immediate cash payout.

brrrrrm 10mo ago

on Bun's website, the runtime section features HTTP, networking, storage -- all are very web-focused. any plans to start expanding into native ML support? (e.g. GPUs, RDMA-type networking, cluster management, NFS)

Jarred 10mo ago
Probably not. When we add new APIs in Bun, we generally base the interface off of popular existing packages. The bar is very high for a runtime to include libraries because the expectation is to support those APIs ~forever. And I can’t think of popular existing JS libraries for these things.
- niutech 10mo ago
  TensorFlow.js?

atonse 10mo ago

One more thing I hope doesn't change, is the fun Release videos :-) I really enjoy them. They're very apple-y, and for just a programming tool.

losvedir 10mo ago

I'm sort of surprised to see that you used Claude Code so much. I had a vague idea that "Zig people" were generally "Software You Can Love" or "Handmade Software Movement" types, about small programs, exquisitely hand-written, etc, etc. And I know Bun started with an extreme attention to detail around performance. I would have thought LLM-generated code would run a bit counter to both of those. I had sort of carved the world into "vibe coders" who care about the eventual product but don't care so much about the "craft" of code, and people who get joy out of the actual process of coding and designing beautiful abstractions and data structures and all that, which I didn't really think worked with LLM code. But I guess not, and this definitely causes me to update my understanding of what LLM-generated code can look like (in my day to day, I mostly see what I would consider as not very good code when it comes from an LLM). Would you say your usage of Claude Code was more "around the edges", doing things like writing tests and documentation and such? Or did it actually help in real, crunchy problems in the depths of low level Zig code?

vector_spaces 10mo ago
I am not your target with this question (I don't write Zig) but there is a spectrum of LLM usage for coding. It is possible to use LLMs extensively but almost never ship LLM generated code, except for tiny trivial functions. One can use them for ideation, quick research, or prototypes/starting places, and then build on that. That is how I use them, anyway Culturally I see pure vibe coders as intersecting more with entrepreneurfluencer types who are non-technical but trying to extend their capabilities. Most technical folks I know are fairly disillusioned with pure vibe coding, but that's my corner of the world, YMMV
- dijit 10mo ago
  fwiw, copilots licence only explicitly permits using its suggestions the way you say. putting everyone using the generated outputs into a sort of unofficial grey market: even when using first-party tools. Which is weird.
  - lupire 10mo ago

sktrdie 10mo ago

I've never personally used Bun. I use node.js I guess. What makes Bun fundamentally better at AI than, say, bundling a node.js app that can run anywhere? If the answer is performance, how does Bun achieve things quicker than Node?

postepowanieadm 10mo ago
Easier deployment, you may generate a single binary.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

420official 10mo ago

Does this acquisition preclude implementing an s3 style integration for AWS bedrock? Also is IMDSv2 auth on the roadmap?

rikafurude21 10mo ago

Any chance there will be some kind of updating mechanism for 'compiled' bun executables?

Jarred 10mo ago
I have a PR that’s been sitting for awhile that exposes the extra options from the renameat2 and renameatx_np syscalls which is a good way to implement self-updaters that work even when multiple processes are updating the same path on disk at the same time. These syscalls are supported on Linux & macOS but I don’t think there’s an equivalent on Windows. We use these syscalls internally for `bun install` to make adding packages into the global install cache work when multiple `bun install` processes are running simultaneously No high-level self updater api is planned right now, but yes for at least the low level parts needed to make a good one

asdfwaafsfw 10mo ago

"work on Bun." LOL. Congratulations.

stack_framer 10mo ago

Are you at liberty to divulge how much Anthropic paid for Bun?

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

urbandw311er 10mo ago

Hi Jarred. Congratulations on the acquisition! Did (or will) your investors make any profit on what they put into Bun?

tovazm 10mo ago

Thanks, Jarred. Seeing what you built with Bun has been a real inspiration, the way one focused engineer can shift an entire ecosystem. It pushed me back into caring about the lower-level side of things again, and I’m grateful for that spark. Congrats on the acquisition, and excited to see what’s next

franciscop 10mo ago

Amazing news, congrats! Been using Bun for a long while now and I love it. Is there anything I could do to improve this PR/get a review? I understand you are def very busy right now with the acquisition, but wanted to give my PR the best shot: https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/24514 https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/pull/24514

hungryhobbit 10mo ago

Why can't you make CLI autocompletions work? It's so basic, but the ticket has languished for almost as long as bun has existed!

Aeolun 10mo ago
Because nobody (including you, apparently) cares enough to implement it?

djdjsjejb 10mo ago

how the helldid you got that og name here in hn asking the real questions

jrflowers 10mo ago

What happens to Bun in a scenario where Anthropic goes under?

Sincere6066 10mo ago

how can you sleep at night?

gaws 10mo ago
The money was too good to pass up.

cdelsolar 10mo ago

my wife and i call each other bun all the time, and it's really weird to see an article full of Buns

baxuz 10mo ago

What are your thoughts on using AI generated cartoons as your primary marketing material on social media? For instance https://xcancel.com/bunjavascript/status/1955893818529866055#m https://xcancel.com/bunjavascript/status/1955893818529866055...

PurpleRamen 10mo ago

What happened to the voxel game that kickstarted the idea of bun? Was it ever finished? How much did it benefit from bun?

gaws 10mo ago

Are contributors getting cash or Anthropic equity as part of the acquisition?

baby 10mo ago

I love Bun and use it daily, but I'm still very frustrated by all the configuration that one needs ATM when working in the js ecosystem. Do you guys see yourself integrating more and more, and moving more and more towards a "convention over configuration", to bring a more streamlined dev experience (that languages like Golang and Rust have, for example)