Top CLI Coding Agents for the Terminal (2026)
A CLI coding agent lives in the terminal, not in an editor pane. You drive it from the shell. It reads and edits your files, runs commands, and works with git. This list covers the agents developers reach for at the command line. Each entry states what the tool is, its license, and where it runs. Fast-moving numbers are left off on purpose (see the note below).
Anthropic's agentic coding tool for the terminal. Editor, web, and mobile surfaces sit alongside it.
- Runs:
- Terminal + IDE + web/mobile
- Source:
- Proprietary
A lightweight coding agent that runs in your terminal and executes locally, from OpenAI.
- Runs:
- Terminal, local
- License:
- Apache-2.0
An open-source agent that brings Google's Gemini models into the terminal. It has a free tier for personal accounts.
- Runs:
- Terminal
- License:
- Apache-2.0
An open-source AI pair-programming tool for the terminal. It makes git commits for you. It connects to almost any LLM, including local models.
- Runs:
- Terminal, local
- License:
- Apache-2.0
An open-source terminal coding agent. It works with many model providers. A desktop app is in beta.
- Runs:
- Terminal
- License:
- MIT
An open-source coding agent for the IDE and terminal. It supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
- Runs:
- IDE + terminal
- License:
- Apache-2.0
An open-source agent from Block that runs on your machine and handles broad tasks. It has a CLI, a desktop app, and MCP extensions.
- Runs:
- Terminal + desktop, local
- License:
- Apache-2.0
Reviewed quarterly. This list keeps to durable facts: what each tool is, its license, where it runs. It leaves out stars, pricing, and benchmark scores on purpose. Those change too fast to stay right on a static page. Each row carries the date it was last checked against the project's own source.
Common questions
- What is a CLI coding agent?
- A coding agent you drive from the terminal rather than an editor. It reads and edits files in your project. It runs shell commands and works with git. Since it lives on the command line, you can script it and run it over SSH or in CI.
- Which terminal coding agents are open source?
- Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Aider, Cline, and Goose are open source (Apache-2.0), and OpenCode is MIT-licensed. Claude Code is proprietary.
- Can these run local or open-weight models?
- Aider connects to almost any LLM, including local models. Several others work with more than one provider. Check each project's model settings for the current list.