Trae AI — The Free Powerhouse Coding IDE

Exploring ByteDance's VS Code fork with unlimited top-tier AI models

What is Trae.ai?

Trae (often just called Trae or Trae IDE) is an AI-powered coding IDE developed by ByteDance. It's built as a fork of VS Code and brings powerful agent-based programming, intelligent completions, and real-time AI assistance — completely free with generous access to top models like GPT-4o and Claude-3.5-Sonnet.

Many developers consider it one of the strongest free alternatives to Cursor right now.

Key Features That Stand Out

Builder Mode

Let AI agents autonomously generate whole projects or big features from natural language descriptions.

SOLO Mode

The AI becomes your autonomous engineer — plans, codes, debugs, and iterates with minimal supervision.

Memory & Skills

Persistent project memory + reusable workflow Skills keep context alive across sessions.

Unlimited Top Models

Free access to premium models (subject to fair usage) — no subscription required for core features.

Dealing with Chat/Agent History Persistence

One common pain point: Trae does not automatically save full chat & agent conversation history across project window closures/reopens like some users expect from ChatGPT-style tools.

Best Workarounds (2026 Edition)

  1. Use Built-in Memory
    Settings → Rules & Skills → Memory → Enable
    → Supports both Global and Project-specific memory
    → AI automatically recalls preferences, rules & key facts when you reopen the project
  2. Manual Context Summary Files (Most Reliable)
    Ask AI to summarize full conversation + decisions:
    "Summarize our entire chat history, agent decisions, code changes and current architecture. Save as context-summary.md"
    → On reopen: reference with #Doc context-summary.md or add to project docs
  3. Persistent Project Docs
    Keep files like PROJECT_GUIDELINES.md, AGENT_RULES.md, STYLE_CONVENTIONS.md
    → Reference anytime with #Doc or Settings → Context

Quick Tips to Level Up with Trae

  • Master #Context and #Doc for feeding large docs instantly
  • Create reusable Skills for your most common workflows
  • Use .rules files + MCP for custom agent behavior
  • Optimize indexing: Settings → Context → Ignore Files (exclude node_modules, dist, etc.)
  • Check community: r/Trae_ai + recent X discussions for latest hacks

Final Thoughts

Free. Powerful. Agent-first.
Trae is quickly becoming many developers' daily driver in 2026.