Best Free Agentic CLI Coding Tools

Cursor is an advanced AI-powered IDE designed to make developers exponentially more productive. Built with deep codebase understanding and intelligent automation, it combines natural language interaction with precise, context-aware editing tools. Its Agent feature acts as a human-AI coding partner capable of planning and executing entire development workflows, while the Tab model delivers remarkably accurate autocompletion and targeted suggestions. Cursor seamlessly integrates across environments—from GitHub and Slack to the command line—ensuring AI assistance is available wherever you code. Supporting leading models like GPT-5, Claude Sonnet, Gemini Pro, and Grok Code, it gives developers full control over autonomy and model selection. Fast, intuitive, and built for serious builders, Cursor is redefining what an IDE can be.

Aider lets you pair program with LLMs, to edit code in your local git repository. Start a new project or work with an existing git repo. Aider works best with GPT-4o & Claude 3.5 Sonnet and can connect to almost any LLM. Aider has one of the top scores on SWE Bench. SWE Bench is a challenging software engineering benchmark where aider solved real GitHub issues from popular open source projects like django, scikitlearn, matplotlib, etc.

Kiro is an AI‑powered integrated development environment that brings structure to AI‑driven coding by converting natural‑language prompts into clear requirements, system designs, and discrete implementation tasks validated by robust tests. Built from the ground up for agentic workflows, it features spec‑driven development, multimodal chat, “agent hooks” that trigger background tasks on events like file saves, and an autopilot mode that autonomously runs large scripts while keeping you in control. With smart context management, Kiro reduces repetitive prompts and helps implement complex features across large codebases. Native MCP integrations let you connect to documentation, databases, and APIs, and you can guide development with images of UI designs or architecture diagrams. Enterprise‑grade security and privacy ensure safe deployment, while support for Claude Sonnet models, Open VSX plugins, and existing VS Code settings delivers a familiar yet AI‑supercharged experience.