> cat /etc/editorial/about.yml

Editorial Team & Methodology

aicoolies is built and maintained by one developer who tests the tools first-hand. Here is who runs it, exactly how every entry is verified, and how the scores are assigned.

Founder & Editor-in-Chief

Raşit Akyol

Verified Expert

Senior Full-Stack Developer

Founder & Editor-in-Chief

A Senior Full-Stack Developer with 15+ years of production experience. As the founder of Digital Karınca, a digital software agency based in Izmir, Turkey, he delivers high-performance web systems and developer-centric products to clients worldwide. Rasit works daily with compiler systems, cloud architectures, and modern toolchains in active production projects. He created aicoolies.com as a passion project and developer knowledge graph to personally test, benchmark, and evaluate emerging dev tools, editors, and APIs based on real-world utility. Every tool, score, and comparison on the site is tested, verified, and approved by him.

Scoring Rubric

Every review carries four 0–100 scores. This is what each one measures and how it is assigned.

Speed

score_speed · 0–100

Raw responsiveness in day-to-day use: completion and generation latency, indexing time on a real mid-size repository, cold-start time, and how the tool behaves under a slow connection. Measured hands-on during actual work sessions, not synthetic benchmarks.

Privacy

score_privacy · 0–100

What leaves your machine and under which terms: training on your code, prompt retention windows, telemetry defaults and opt-outs, self-hosting options, and whether a zero-retention or enterprise mode exists. Claims are checked against the vendor’s own privacy policy and documentation, not marketing pages.

Developer Experience

score_dev_experience · 0–100

How it feels to work with: setup friction, editor and CLI integration quality, configurability, documentation depth, failure modes, and how well it fits into an existing workflow rather than demanding a new one.

Overall

score_overall · 0–100

The editor’s holistic verdict on a 0–100 scale. It weighs the three dimensions above together with pricing fairness and project health (maintenance activity, license, longevity risk). It is a considered editorial judgment, not an automated average — two tools with identical sub-scores can earn different overall scores when their pricing or trajectory differs.

Re-verification cadence

Tool pages carry a visible “last verified” date. Pricing, licensing, and maintenance status are re-checked on a rolling cycle and immediately after vendor announcements (pricing changes, acquisitions, shutdowns). Tools that stop being maintained are moved to the Graveyard with the date and, where possible, a recommended migration path. Scores are revisited whenever a re-verification changes the facts they were based on.

Editorial Standards

The rules every tool, review, and comparison on this site is held to.

Hands-On Testing

Every tool is installed and used on real production projects before it earns a score. Ratings come from first-hand use — never from a marketing page or a press release.

Source Verification

Pricing, licensing, and feature claims are cross-checked against official documentation and live repository activity. If a claim cannot be verified, it does not get published.

Lifecycle Tracking

Abandoned and discontinued tools are moved to the Graveyard so the catalog always reflects what is actually maintained. Stale entries are reviewed and retired on a regular cadence.

Transparent Scoring

Scores and comparisons follow a consistent, repeatable rubric. Every entry is read, edited, and approved by a human engineer before it goes live — no automated bulk publishing.

$echo "Tested by hand. Verified by a human."

Every software package in this directory is reviewed and approved by a human engineer.