This recap covers the OC for Tooling track at Open Community Experience 2026 (OCX26), with sessions focused on Eclipse Theia, AI-powered IDEs, open source developer tools, language engineering, and the growing role of tooling in modern software systems.

Over three days at OCX26, the Open Community for Tooling track stayed close to what developers actually care about: how tools behave under pressure, how they scale, and whether they hold up when you move from demo to production.

The sessions moved quickly from live demos of AI inside IDEs to deeper discussions about collaboration, modelling, and what happens when an open source project stops being “just a tool” and becomes something people depend on.

Key topics from the Tooling track

A few patterns kept showing up across the sessions:

• AI is no longer a side feature inside tools. It is becoming part of how work gets done.
• Development environments are turning into shared systems, not personal setups.
• Open source tooling is quietly becoming infrastructure, with all the expectations that come with that.

Alongside the main sessions, the track also included Birds of a Feather discussions and hands-on workshops that added a more practical and interactive layer. 

The BoF sessions brought contributors and users together around concrete technologies such as Eclipse Theia AI, Langium, and AI-native developer tools, as well as the evolution of the Eclipse IoT stack, including Eclipse Kura, Kapua, and Zenoh. 

In parallel, workshops focused on applying these ideas in practice, with sessions like Systematic AI Coding for Real-World Projects showing how to move from ad-hoc prompting to structured, repeatable workflows inside modern IDEs. 

These formats created space for direct exchange, deeper technical questions, and hands-on experimentation beyond the main stage.

Day 1 at Open Community for Tooling: Highlights 

AI in Action: The ultimate live demo with Theia AI with Jonas Helming

Jonas Helming opened his session saying, “this session isn't about slides, it's about live demos” and he delivered exactly that. Instead of talking about what AI could do, the session on Eclipse Theia showed it in action. He created AI agents, configured them, and made them work together directly inside the IDE.

He showcased how the agents were wired into the environment. Context engineering, external data, and open standards were all part of the setup. You can see the recording on the OCX YouTube channel.

One key takeaway: AI-native IDEs are already operational, with extensible frameworks enabling real-time orchestration of agents and workflows.

Cross-platform collaborative coding: From web apps to AI agents with Miro Spönemann and Jan Bicker

Miro Spönemann and Jan Bicker focused on how collaboration is shifting, stating early on: “Collaboration in software development is evolving beyond the boundaries of the IDE.” You can see the recording on our OCX YouTube channel.

The session showed how Eclipse Theia and Eclipse Open Collaboration Tools (OCT) connect IDEs and web applications into shared, real-time workspaces. Developers, domain experts, and AI agents all operate in the same environment.

The Eclipse OCT Agent stood out. AI is not just assisting, but also participating, connecting to systems and contributing to workflows alongside people.

One key takeaway: Development environments are becoming shared systems where humans and AI collaborate in real time.

Hardware accelerated drawing for SWT with Skia with Denis Ungemach

Denis Ungemach took on a very specific but important problem: Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) rendering.

By introducing a Skia-based approach, the session showed how SWT can move away from platform-dependent rendering. The results are tangible. “There are benchmarks that demonstrate the performance can increase drastically,” he said.

It does not require rewriting applications. Developers can adopt better rendering with relatively small changes. You can see the recording of this session.

One key takeaway: Modernising rendering pipelines can significantly improve performance without requiring major rewrites.

Day 2 at Open Community for Tooling: Highlights 

The Path to a Future-Proof Implementation of Eclipse SWT: Lessons from Initiative 31 with Heiko Klare

Heiko Klare presented the outcomes of Initiative 31, a cross-company effort to assess how Eclipse SWT can remain sustainable as operating systems evolve.

The session focused on a core challenge: SWT relies on separate implementations per operating system, creating ongoing maintenance overhead and inconsistencies.

To address this, the team explored an OS-agnostic approach while keeping the existing API. Using Skia as a rendering engine, they built a working prototype where SWT widgets are implemented independently of the OS and still run the Eclipse SDK.

The result showed that a future-proof SWT architecture is technically feasible, but requires significant investment to move beyond the prototype stage. The recording is on our OCX YouTube channel.

One key takeaway: The barrier to a next-generation SWT is not technical feasibility, but the resources needed to deliver it.

Transforming digital transformations with Eclipse Theia and the Semantic Eye with Oliver Reinhard

This talk focused on why projects often fail. It’s not because of a lack of tools, but because systems, processes, and teams are disconnected.

The proposed approach centres on structured modelling and integrated tooling. Instead of layering new tools on top, the goal is to align everything around a shared engineering view. The recording is on our OCX YouTube channel.

One key takeaway: Digital transformation fails when systems and teams are disconnected, not when tools are missing.

Learning from 10 years of building programming languages with Mark Sujew

Mark Sujew shared a decade of experience working with language engineering tools like Eclipse Xtext and Eclipse Langium.

The session highlighted a familiar pattern. These frameworks make it easier to get started, but problems show up quickly at scale. “Scaling these frameworks to support multi-million line code bases quickly becomes an incredibly challenging task”, he mentioned.

The discussion focused on performance limits, architectural decisions, and the reality of maintaining large codebases over time. You can see the recording on our OCX YouTube channel.

One key takeaway: Building a language is manageable, scaling it is where things get difficult.

Day 3 at Open Community for Tooling: Highlights

Diagrams on the Web, OSS all the way: SysON and SysMLv2 with Mélanie Bats and Etienne Juliot

Mélanie Bats and Etienne Juliot focused on moving modelling tools to the web. The recording of this session is now available.

Eclipse SysON reflects that shift. It combines diagrams and text in a browser-based environment where teams can collaborate without dealing with local setups or file sharing. The emphasis is on flexibility and openness, making it easier for teams to adapt the tool to their own workflows.

One key takeaway: Web-based modelling removes friction and makes collaboration easier across teams.

Beyond the desktop: Architecting a drop-in replacement for modernising legacy SWT and RCP applications with Sebastian Sampaoli

Sebastian Sampaoli presented a different approach to modernising legacy applications. Instead of rewriting everything, the idea is to replace the rendering layer. The result is quick: “You don’t need to modify any lines of code.”

By decoupling UI rendering from business logic, applications can move to modern environments while keeping their core intact. You can see this session on the OCX YouTube channel.

One key takeaway: Modernisation does not have to mean rewriting everything.

Be careful what you wish for: Your project might become infrastructure with Gaël Blondelle and Thabang Mashlogu

Gaël Blondelle and Thabang Mashlogu looked at what happens when an open source project becomes widely used.

Eclipse Open VSX started as a solution to a specific problem. Then it grew and eventually, “You start to see businesses depend on it”, as Gaël mentioned.

At that point, expectations change. Availability, performance, and security are no longer optional. The project has to operate like infrastructure. The recording for this session is available on the OCX YouTube channel.

One key takeaway: When open source projects succeed, they inherit the responsibilities of infrastructure.

What OCX means in practice

Across the three days, one thing became obvious. Tooling is no longer something developers use in isolation. It sits at the centre of how systems are built, how teams collaborate, and how software runs in production.

AI, collaboration, performance, and infrastructure are all converging in the same space. The tools that handle that complexity well are the ones that will last.

Many of the more detailed implementation questions surfaced during these smaller sessions, where contributors and users could dig into architecture decisions, tooling trade-offs, and real-world constraints. 

If you missed one of the sessions from the Open Community for Tooling, you can now see them on our YouTube channel.