A developer built a browser based implementation of the classic Visual Basic 6 development environment, complete with a form designer, code editor and a debugger with breakpoints and stepping, according to the project's GitHub repository.
The project includes a custom VB6 parser and compiler that targets an internal instruction model and runs without JavaScript eval, the repository says. It renders through WebGPU with a Canvas2D fallback and ships 37 browser based control types, including tree views, list views and charts.
Finished projects can open native .vbp Visual Basic project files, connect to SQLite, REST APIs, OData and GraphQL, and export as standalone single file HTML applications or, optionally, native Windows executables, according to the repository.
The project also exposes Model Context Protocol access for coding agents. Its developer describes it as "not a complete, native or pixel-identical Microsoft VB6 replacement," with compatibility limits documented separately, the repository says. It is released under the MIT license and reached the front page of Hacker News with 250 points.
VB6 shipped in 1998 and Microsoft stopped supporting it years ago, but plenty of line of business software still runs on it. A dependency free way to open, debug and export that code from a browser, with an agent interface built in, is a more practical rescue plan for that software than a rewrite most teams will never schedule time for.