DirectoryAI agents

CLI agent: ai agents in 2026

16 entries, ranked by their latest verification, share of daily checks passed, sourced facts and response time. Never by payment.

  1. Grok Build Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #1 in CLI agent
    xAI's terminal coding agent (the grok CLI): a full-screen TUI that also runs headless and over the Agent Client Protocol.
  2. Claude Code Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #2 in CLI agent
    Anthropic's agent for the terminal, IDE and desktop that reads, edits and runs code in your repo.
  3. Gemini CLI Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #3 in CLI agent
    Google's open-source terminal agent built around Gemini models.
  4. Hermes Agent Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #4 in CLI agent
    Nous Research's self-improving terminal agent for coding and other tasks, with persistent memory, agent-made skills and a messaging gateway.
  5. Kilo Code Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #5 in CLI agent
    Open-source coding agent for VS Code, JetBrains and CLI with a gateway to 500+ models.
  6. OpenAI Codex CLI Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #6 in CLI agent
    OpenAI's open-source terminal coding agent, also available as IDE extension and cloud agent.
  7. Warp Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #7 in CLI agent
    Agentic development environment built around the terminal.
  8. goose Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #8 in CLI agent
    Open-source on-machine agent extended through MCP servers.
  9. OpenCode Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #9 in CLI agent
    Open-source coding agent for terminal, desktop and IDE that works with 75+ model providers.
  10. Qwen Code Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #10 in CLI agent
    Open-source terminal agent tuned for Qwen coder models.
  11. Muse Code Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #11 in CLI agent
    Meta's terminal and CI coding agent (the muse CLI), built for Muse Spark, with subagents in isolated worktrees and a replayable event log.
  12. Pi Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #12 in CLI agent
    Minimal toolkit: unified LLM API, agent loop, TUI and a coding-agent CLI.
  13. Aider Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #13 in CLI agent
    Terminal pair programmer that maps your repo and commits each change to git.
  14. Crush Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #14 in CLI agent
    Charm's terminal coding agent with a polished TUI.
  15. Cursor CLI Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #15 in CLI agent
    Terminal version of the Cursor agent for scripts and headless runs.
  16. Plandex Sourced facts checked 2026-10-17 · #16 in CLI agent
    Open-source terminal agent for large multi-file tasks with a diff review sandbox.

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CLI agent: best ai agents in 2026 (16 verified and sourced) · Vibe Shipped