[HN Gopher] OpenAI Codex CLI: Lightweight coding agent that runs...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       OpenAI Codex CLI: Lightweight coding agent that runs in your
       terminal
        
       Author : mfiguiere
       Score  : 502 points
       Date   : 2025-04-16 17:24 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | swyx wrote:
       | related demo/intro video:
       | https://x.com/OpenAIDevs/status/1912556874211422572
       | 
       | this is a direct answer to claude code which has been shipping
       | furiously: https://x.com/_catwu/status/1903130881205977320
       | 
       | and is not open source; there are unverified comments that they
       | have DMCA'ed decompilations
       | https://x.com/vikhyatk/status/1899997417736724858?s=46
       | 
       | by total coincidence we're releasing our claude code interview
       | later this week that touches on a lot of these points + why code
       | agent CLIs are an actually underrated point in the SWE design
       | space
       | 
       | (TLDR you can use it like a linux utility - similar to @simonw's
       | `llm` - to sprinkle intelligence in all sorts of things like
       | CI/PR review without the overhead of buying a Devin or a Copilot
       | SaaS)
       | 
       | if you are a Claude Code (and now OAI Codex) power user we want
       | to hear use cases - CFP closing soon, apply here
       | https://sessionize.com/ai-engineer-worlds-fair-2025
        
       | brap wrote:
       | What's the point of making the gif run so fast you can't even see
       | shit
        
       | bigyabai wrote:
       | RAM  4-GB minimum (8-GB recommended)
       | 
       | It's a CLI...
        
         | m00x wrote:
         | Which needs to fit all the code in memory + they're considering
         | OS space, etc.
        
       | terminaltrove wrote:
       | It's very interesting that both OpenAI and Anthropic are
       | releasing tools that run in the terminal, especially with a TUI
       | which is what we showcase.
       | 
       | aider was one of the first we listed as terminal tool of the week
       | (0) last year. (1)
       | 
       | We recently featured parllama (2) (not our tool) if you like to
       | run offline and online models in the terminal with a full TUI.
       | 
       | (0) https://terminaltrove.com/tool-of-the-week/
       | 
       | (1) https://terminaltrove.com/aider/
       | 
       | (2) https://terminaltrove.com/parllama/
        
       | mark_mcnally_je wrote:
       | If one of these tools has broad model support (like aider) it
       | would be a game changer.
        
         | elliot07 wrote:
         | Agree. My wish-list is:
         | 
         | 1. Non JS based. I've noticed a ton of random bugs/oddities in
         | Claude Code, and now Codex with UI flickering, scaling, user
         | input issues, etc, all from what I believe of trying to do
         | React stuff and writing half-baked LLM produced JS in a CLI
         | application. Using a more appropriate language that is better
         | for CLIs I think would help a lot here (Go or Rust for eg).
         | 
         | 2. Customized model selection (eg. OpenRouter, etc).
         | 
         | 3. Full MCP support.
        
       | gizmodo59 wrote:
       | This is pretty neat! I was able to use it for few use cases where
       | it got it right the first time. The ability to use a screenshot
       | to create an application is nice for rapid prototyping. And good
       | to see them open sourcing it unlike claude.
        
       | danenania wrote:
       | Cool to see more interesting terminal based options! Looking
       | forward to trying this out.
       | 
       | I've been working on something related--Plandex[1], an open
       | source AI coding agent that is particularly focused on large
       | projects and complex tasks.
       | 
       | I launched the v2 a few weeks ago and it is now running well. In
       | terms of how to place it in the landscape, it's more agentic than
       | aider, more configurable and tightly controlled than Devin, and
       | more provider-agnostic/multi-provider/open source than Claude
       | Code or this new competitor from OpenAI.
       | 
       | I'm still working on getting the very latest models integrated.
       | Gemini Pro 2.5 and these new OpenAI models will be integrated
       | into the defaults by the end of the week I hope. Current default
       | model pack is a mix of Sonnet 3.7, o3-mini with various levels of
       | reasoning effort, and Gemini 1.5 Pro for large context planning.
       | Currently by default, it supports 2M tokens of context directly
       | and can index and work with massive projects of 20M tokens and
       | beyond.
       | 
       | Very interested to hear HN's thoughts and feedback if anyone
       | wants to try it. I'd also welcome honest comparisons to
       | alternatives, including Codex CLI. I'm planning a Show HN within
       | the next few days.
       | 
       | 1 - https://github.com/plandex-ai/plandex
        
         | georgewsinger wrote:
         | Insane that people would downvote a totally reasonable comment
         | offering a competing alternative. HN is supposed to be a
         | community of tech builders.
        
         | danenania wrote:
         | Decided to just go ahead and post the Show HN today:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43710576
        
       | udbhavs wrote:
       | _Next, set your OpenAI API key as an environment variable:_
       | 
       |  _export OPENAI_API_KEY= "your-api-key-here"_
       | 
       |  _Note: This command sets the key only for your current terminal
       | session. To make it permanent, add the export line to your shell
       | 's configuration file (e.g., ~/.zshrc)._
       | 
       | Can't any 3rd party utility running in the same shell session
       | phone home with the API key? I'd ideally want only codex to be
       | able to access this var
        
         | jsheard wrote:
         | If you let malicious code run unsandboxed on your main account
         | then you probably have bigger problems than an OpenAI API key
         | getting leaked.
        
           | mhitza wrote:
           | You mean running npm update at the "wrong time"?
        
         | primitivesuave wrote:
         | You could create a shell function - e.g. `codex() {
         | OPENAI="xyz" codex "$@" }'. To call the original command use
         | `command codex ...`.
         | 
         | People downvoting legitimate questions on HN should be ashamed
         | of themselves.
        
           | udbhavs wrote:
           | That's neat! I only asked because I haven't seen API keys
           | used in the context of profile environment variables in shell
           | before - there might be other common cases I'm unaware of
        
       | siva7 wrote:
       | how does it compare to cursor or copilot?
        
       | flakiness wrote:
       | https://github.com/openai/codex/blob/main/codex-cli/src/comp...
       | 
       | Hey comment this thing in!                 const thinkingTexts =
       | ["Thinking"]; /* [       "Consulting the rubber duck",
       | "Maximizing paperclips",       "Reticulating splines",
       | "Immanentizing the Eschaton",       "Thinking",       "Thinking
       | about thinking",       "Spinning in circles",       "Counting
       | dust specks",       "Updating priors",       "Feeding the utility
       | monster",       "Taking off",       "Wireheading",
       | "Counting to infinity",       "Staring into the Basilisk",
       | "Negotiationing acausal trades",       "Searching the library of
       | babel",       "Multiplying matrices",       "Solving the halting
       | problem",       "Counting grains of sand",       "Simulating a
       | simulation",       "Asking the oracle",       "Detangling
       | qubits",       "Reading tea leaves",       "Pondering universal
       | love and transcendant joy",       "Feeling the AGI",
       | "Shaving the yak",       "Escaping local minima",       "Pruning
       | the search tree",       "Descending the gradient",
       | "Bikeshedding",       "Securing funding",       "Rewriting in
       | Rust",       "Engaging infinite improbability drive",
       | "Clapping with one hand",       "Synthesizing",       "Rebasing
       | thesis onto antithesis",       "Transcending the loop",
       | "Frogeposting",       "Summoning",       "Peeking beyond the
       | veil",       "Seeking",       "Entering deep thought",
       | "Meditating",       "Decomposing",       "Creating",
       | "Beseeching the machine spirit",       "Calibrating moral
       | compass",       "Collapsing the wave function",       "Doodling",
       | "Translating whale song",       "Whispering to silicon",
       | "Looking for semicolons",       "Asking ChatGPT",
       | "Bargaining with entropy",       "Channeling",       "Cooking",
       | "Parrotting stochastically",       ]; */
        
         | jzig wrote:
         | Uhh... why is React in a terminal tool?
        
           | lgas wrote:
           | Presumably the people that developed it have a lot of pre-
           | existing React knowledge so it was the easiest path forward.
        
           | Hansenq wrote:
           | React is used to render the CLI through ink:
           | https://github.com/vadimdemedes/ink
        
       | nodesocket wrote:
       | Little disappointing it's build in Node (speed & security),
       | though honestly does not matter all that much. Seems like the
       | right place for this functionality though is inside your editor
       | (Cursor) not in your Terminal. Sure AI can help with command
       | completion, man pages, but building apps is a stretch.
        
       | flakiness wrote:
       | Here is the prompt template, in case you're interested:
       | const prefix = `You are operating as and within the Codex CLI, a
       | terminal-based agentic coding assistant built by OpenAI. It wraps
       | OpenAI models to enable natural language interaction with a local
       | codebase. You are expected to be precise, safe, and helpful.
       | You can:      - Receive user prompts, project context, and files.
       | - Stream responses and emit function calls (e.g., shell commands,
       | code edits).      - Apply patches, run commands, and manage user
       | approvals based on policy.      - Work inside a sandboxed, git-
       | backed workspace with rollback support.      - Log telemetry so
       | sessions can be replayed or inspected later.      - More details
       | on your functionality are available at \`codex --help\`
       | The Codex CLI is open-sourced. Don't confuse yourself with the
       | old Codex language model built by OpenAI many moons ago (this is
       | understandably top of mind for you!). Within this context, Codex
       | refers to the open-source agentic coding interface.
       | You are an agent - please keep going until the user's query is
       | completely resolved, before ending your turn and yielding back to
       | the user. Only terminate your turn when you are sure that the
       | problem is solved. If you are not sure about file content or
       | codebase structure pertaining to the user's request, use your
       | tools to read files and gather the relevant information: do NOT
       | guess or make up an answer.            Please resolve the user's
       | task by editing and testing the code files in your current code
       | execution session. You are a deployed coding agent. Your session
       | allows for you to modify and run code. The repo(s) are already
       | cloned in your working directory, and you must fully solve the
       | problem for your answer to be considered correct.            You
       | MUST adhere to the following criteria when executing the task:
       | - Working on the repo(s) in the current environment is allowed,
       | even if they are proprietary.      - Analyzing code for
       | vulnerabilities is allowed.      - Showing user code and tool
       | call details is allowed.      - User instructions may overwrite
       | the *CODING GUIDELINES* section in this developer message.      -
       | Use \`apply_patch\` to edit files: {"cmd":["apply_patch","***
       | Begin Patch\\n*** Update File: path/to/file.py\\n@@ def
       | example():\\n-  pass\\n+  return 123\\n*** End Patch"]}      - If
       | completing the user's task requires writing or modifying files:
       | - Your code and final answer should follow these *CODING
       | GUIDELINES*:              - Fix the problem at the root cause
       | rather than applying surface-level patches, when possible.
       | - Avoid unneeded complexity in your solution.                  -
       | Ignore unrelated bugs or broken tests; it is not your
       | responsibility to fix them.              - Update documentation
       | as necessary.              - Keep changes consistent with the
       | style of the existing codebase. Changes should be minimal and
       | focused on the task.                  - Use \`git log\` and \`git
       | blame\` to search the history of the codebase if additional
       | context is required; internet access is disabled.              -
       | NEVER add copyright or license headers unless specifically
       | requested.              - You do not need to \`git commit\` your
       | changes; this will be done automatically for you.              -
       | If there is a .pre-commit-config.yaml, use \`pre-commit run
       | --files ...\` to check that your changes pass the pre-commit
       | checks. However, do not fix pre-existing errors on lines you
       | didn't touch.                  - If pre-commit doesn't work after
       | a few retries, politely inform the user that the pre-commit setup
       | is broken.              - Once you finish coding, you must
       | - Check \`git status\` to sanity check your changes; revert any
       | scratch files or changes.                  - Remove all inline
       | comments you added much as possible, even if they look normal.
       | Check using \`git diff\`. Inline comments must be generally
       | avoided, unless active maintainers of the repo, after long
       | careful study of the code and the issue, will still misinterpret
       | the code without the comments.                  - Check if you
       | accidentally add copyright or license headers. If so, remove
       | them.                  - Try to run pre-commit if it is
       | available.                  - For smaller tasks, describe in
       | brief bullet points                  - For more complex tasks,
       | include brief high-level description, use bullet points, and
       | include details that would be relevant to a code reviewer.      -
       | If completing the user's task DOES NOT require writing or
       | modifying files (e.g., the user asks a question about the code
       | base):          - Respond in a friendly tune as a remote
       | teammate, who is knowledgeable, capable and eager to help with
       | coding.      - When your task involves writing or modifying
       | files:          - Do NOT tell the user to "save the file" or
       | "copy the code into a file" if you already created or modified
       | the file using \`apply_patch\`. Instead, reference the file as
       | already saved.          - Do NOT show the full contents of large
       | files you have already written, unless the user explicitly asks
       | for them.`;
       | 
       | https://github.com/openai/codex/blob/main/codex-cli/src/util...
        
         | OJFord wrote:
         | > - Check if you accidentally add copyright or license headers.
         | If so, remove them.
         | 
         | is interesting
        
           | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
           | Lol. Stolen code incoming.
        
         | buzzerbetrayed wrote:
         | > built by OpenAI many moons ago
         | 
         | What's with this writing style in a prompt? Is there a reason
         | they write like that? Or does it just not matter so why not?
        
       | blt wrote:
       | Sorry for being a grumpy old man, but I don't have npm on my
       | machine and I never will. It's a bit frustrating to see more and
       | more CLI tools depending on it.
        
         | crancher wrote:
         | What are your concerns?
        
           | jensenbox wrote:
           | The entire JS ecosystem.
        
         | John23832 wrote:
         | I asked the same question for Anthropic's version of this. Why
         | is all of this in JS?
        
           | parhamn wrote:
           | JS is web's (and "hip" developer's) python, and in many ways
           | it is better. Also the tooling is getting a lot better
           | (libraries, typescript, bundling, packaging, performance).
           | 
           | One thing I wonder that could be cool: when Bun has
           | sufficient NodeJS compatibility the should ship bun --compile
           | versions so you dont need node/npm on the system.
           | 
           | Then it's arguably a, "why not JS?"
        
         | teaearlgraycold wrote:
         | Judge the packages on their dependencies, not on their package
         | manager.
        
         | sudofail wrote:
         | Same, there are so many options these days for writing CLIs
         | without runtime dependencies. I definitely prefer static
         | binaries.
        
         | Dangeranger wrote:
         | You could just run it in a Docker container and not think about
         | it much after that. Mount a volume to the container with the
         | directory contents you want to be available for edit by the
         | agent.
         | 
         | https://github.com/openai/codex/blob/main/codex-cli/scripts/...
        
         | schainks wrote:
         | Why? I am not the biggest fan of needing a whole VM to run CLI
         | tools either, but it's a low-enough friction experience that I
         | don't particularly care as long as the runtime environment is
         | self-contained.
        
         | meta_ai_x wrote:
         | if OpenAI had really smart models, they would converted TS/JS
         | apps to Go or Rust apps.
         | 
         | Since they don't, AGI is not here
        
         | therealmarv wrote:
         | It might shock you but many of use editors built on browsers
         | for editing source code.
         | 
         | I think the encapsulating comment from a another guy (in Docker
         | or any other of your favorite VM) might be your solution.
        
         | tyre wrote:
         | this is a strong HN comment. lots of "putting a stick in my own
         | bicycle wheel" energy
         | 
         | there are tons fascinating things happening in AI and the
         | evolution of programming right now. Claude and OpenAI are at
         | the forefront of these. Not trying it because of npm is a vibe
         | and a half.
        
         | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
         | Yep, this is another one of the reasons why all of these tools
         | are incredibly poor. Like, the other day I was looking at the
         | MCP spec from anthropic and it might be the worst spec that
         | I've ever read in my life. Enshittification at the level of an
         | industry is happening.
        
       | gklitt wrote:
       | I tried one task head-to-head with Codex o4-mini vs Claude Code:
       | writing documentation for a tricky area of a medium-sized
       | codebase.
       | 
       | Claude Code did great and wrote pretty decent docs.
       | 
       | Codex didn't do well. It hallucinated a bunch of stuff that
       | wasn't in the code, and completely misrepresented the
       | architecture - it started talking about server backends and REST
       | APIs in an app that doesn't have any of that.
       | 
       | I'm curious what went so wrong - feels like possibly an issue
       | with loading in the right context and attending to it correctly?
       | That seems like an area that Claude Code has really optimized
       | for.
       | 
       | I have high hopes for o3 and o4-mini as models so I hope that
       | other tests show better results! Also curious to see how Cursor
       | etc. incorporate o3.
        
         | strangescript wrote:
         | Claude Code still feels superior. o4-mini has all sorts of
         | issues. o3 is better but at that point, you aren't saving money
         | so who cares.
         | 
         | I feel like people are sleeping on Claude Code for one reason
         | or another. Its not cheap, but its by far the best, most
         | consistent experience I have had.
        
           | ekabod wrote:
           | "gemini 2.5 pro exp" is superior to Claude Sonnet 3.7 when I
           | use it with Aider [1]. And it is free (with some high limit).
           | 
           | [1]https://aider.chat/
        
             | razemio wrote:
             | Compared to cline aider had no chance, the last time I
             | tried it (4 month ago). Has it really changed? Always
             | thought cline is superior because it focuses on sonnet with
             | all its bells an whistles. While aider tries to be an
             | universal ide coding agent which works well with all
             | models.
             | 
             | When I try gemmini 2.5 pro exp with cline it does very well
             | but often fails to use the tools provided by cline which
             | makes it way less expensive while failing random basic
             | tasks sonnet does in its sleep. I pay the extra to save the
             | time.
             | 
             | Do not get me wrong. Maybe I am totally outdated with my
             | opinion. It is hard to keep up these days.
        
               | ekabod wrote:
               | I tried Cline, but I work faster using the command line
               | style of Aider. Having the /run command to execute a
               | script and having the console content added to the
               | prompt, makes fixing bugs very fast.
        
           | artdigital wrote:
           | Claude Code is just way too expensive.
           | 
           | These days I'm using Amazon Q Pro on the CLI. Very similar
           | experience to Claude Code minus a few batteries. But it's
           | capped at $20/mo and won't set my credit card on fire.
        
             | aitchnyu wrote:
             | Is it using one of these models?
             | https://openrouter.ai/models?q=amazon
             | 
             | Seems 4x costlier than my Aider+Openrouter. Since I'm less
             | about vibes or huge refactoring, my (first and only) bill
             | is <5 usd with Gemini. These models will halve that.
        
               | artdigital wrote:
               | No, Amazon Q is using Amazon Q. You can't change the
               | model, it's calling itself "Q" and it's capped to $20 (Q
               | Developer Pro plan). There is also a free tier available
               | - https://aws.amazon.com/q/developer/
               | 
               | It's very much a "Claude Code" in the sense that you have
               | a "q chat" command line command that can do everything
               | from changing files, running shell commands, reading and
               | researching, etc. So I can say "q chat" and then tell it
               | "read this repo and create a README" or whatever else
               | Claude Code can do. It does everything by itself in an
               | agentic way. (I didn't want to say like 'Aider' because
               | the entire appeal of Claude Code is that it does
               | everything itself, like figuring out what files to
               | read/change)
               | 
               | (It's calling itself Q but from my testing it's pretty
               | clear that it's a variant of Claude hosted through AWS
               | which makes sense considering how much money Amazon
               | pumped into Anthropic)
        
               | aitchnyu wrote:
               | I felt Sonnet 3.7 would cost at least $30 a month for
               | light use. Did they figure out a way to offer it cheaper?
        
               | nmcfarl wrote:
               | I don't know what Amazon did - but I use Aider+Openrouter
               | with Gemini 2.5 pro and it cost 1/6 of what sonnet 3.7
               | does. The aider leaderboard
               | https://aider.chat/docs/leaderboards/ - includes relative
               | pricing theses days.
        
               | dingnuts wrote:
               | > the entire appeal of Claude Code is that it does
               | everything itself, like figuring out what files to
               | read/change
               | 
               | how is this appealing? I think I must be getting old
               | because the idea of letting a language model run wild and
               | run commands on my system -- that's unsanitized input!
               | --horrifies me! What do you mean just let it change
               | random files??
               | 
               | I'm going to have to learn a new trade, IDK
        
               | winrid wrote:
               | It shows you the diff and you confirm it, asks you before
               | running commands, and doesn't allow accessing files
               | outside the current dir. You can also tell it to not ask
               | again and let it go wild, I've built full features this
               | way and then just go through and clean it up a bit after.
        
             | monsieurbanana wrote:
             | > Upgrade apps in a fraction of the time with the Amazon Q
             | Developer Agent for code transformation (limit 4,000 lines
             | of submitted code per month)
             | 
             | 4k loc per month seems terribly low? Any request I make
             | could easily go over that. I feel like I'm completely
             | misunderstanding (their fault though) what they actually
             | meant.
             | 
             | Edit: No I don't think I'm misunderstanding, if you want to
             | go over this they direct you to a pay-per-request plan and
             | you are not capped at $20 anymore
        
               | artdigital wrote:
               | You are confusing Amazon Q in the editor (like
               | "transform"), and Amazon Q on the CLI. The editor thing
               | has some stuff that costs extra after exceeding the
               | limit, but the CLI tool (that acts similar to Claude
               | Code) is a separate feature that doesn't have this
               | restriction. See https://aws.amazon.com/q/developer/prici
               | ng/?p=qdev&z=subnav&..., under "Console" see "Chat". The
               | list is pretty accurate with what's "included" and what
               | costs extra.
               | 
               | I've been running this almost daily for the past months
               | without any issues or extra cost. Still just paying $20
        
         | enether wrote:
         | there was one post that detailed how those OpenAI models
         | hallucinate and double down on thier mistakes by "lying" - it
         | speculated on a bunch of interesting reasons why this may be
         | the case
         | 
         | recommended read -
         | https://transluce.org/investigating-o3-truthfulness
         | 
         | I wonder if this is what's causing it to do badly in these
         | cases
        
         | ksec wrote:
         | Sometimes I see in certain areas AI / LLM is absolutely
         | crushing those jobs, a whole category will be gone in next 5 to
         | 10 years as they are already 80 - 90% mark. They just need
         | another 5 - 10% as they continue to get improvement and they
         | are already cheaper per task.
         | 
         | Sometimes I see an area of AI/LLM that I thought even with 10x
         | efficiency improvement and 10x hardware resources which is 100x
         | in aggregate it will still be no where near good enough.
         | 
         | The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Which is why I
         | dont believe AGI will be here any time soon. But Assisted
         | Intelligence is no doubt in its iPhone moment and continue for
         | another 10 years before hopefully another breakthrough.
        
       | jensenbox wrote:
       | You lost me at NPM
        
       | drivingmenuts wrote:
       | Is there a way to run the model locally? I'd rather not have to
       | pay a monthly fee, if possible.
        
       | mgdev wrote:
       | Strictly worse than Claude Code presently, but I hope since it's
       | open source that changes quickly.
        
         | killerstorm wrote:
         | Given that Claude Code only works with Sonnet 3.7 which has
         | severe limitations, how can it be "strictly worse"?
        
       | asadm wrote:
       | These days, I usually paste my entire (or some) repo into gemini
       | and then APPLY changes back into my code using this handy script
       | i wrote: https://github.com/asadm/vibemode
       | 
       | I have tried aider/copilot/continue/etc. But they lack in one way
       | or the other.
        
         | brandall10 wrote:
         | Why not just select Gemini Pro 2.5 in Copilot with Edit mode?
         | Virtually unlimited use without extra fees.
         | 
         | Copilot used to be useless, but over the last few months has
         | become quite excellent once edit mode was added.
        
           | asadm wrote:
           | copilot (and others) try to be too smart and do context
           | reduction (to save their own wallets). I want ENTIRETY of the
           | files I attached to context, not RAG-ed version of it.
        
             | bredren wrote:
             | This problem is real.
             | 
             | Claude Projects, chatgpt projects, Sourcegraph Cody context
             | building, MCP file systems, all of these are black boxes of
             | what I can only describe as lossy compression of context.
             | 
             | Each is incentivized to deliver ~"pretty good" results at
             | the highest token compression possible.
             | 
             | The best way around this I've found is to just own the web
             | clients by including structured, concatenation related
             | files directly in chat contexts.
             | 
             | Self plug but super relevant: I built FileKitty
             | specifically to aid this, which made HN front page and I've
             | continued to improve:
             | 
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40226976
             | 
             | If you can prepare your file system context yourself using
             | any workflow quickly, and pair it with appropriate
             | additional context such as run output, problem description
             | etc, you can get excellent results and you can pound away
             | at OpenAI or Anthropic subscription refining the prompt or
             | updating the file context.
             | 
             | I have been finding myself spending more time putting
             | together prompt complexity for big difficult problems, they
             | would not make sense to solve in the IDE.
        
             | siva7 wrote:
             | Thanks, most people don't understand this fine difference.
             | Copilot does RAG (as all other subscription-based agents
             | like Cursor) to save $$$, and results with RAG are
             | significantly worse than having the complete context window
             | for complex tasks. That's also the reason why Chatgpt or
             | Claude basically lie to the users when they market their
             | file upload functions by not telling the whole story.
        
         | jwpapi wrote:
         | It's not just about saving money or making less mistakes its
         | also about iteration speed. I can't believe this process is
         | remotely comparable to aider.
         | 
         | In aider everything is loaded in memory I can add drop files in
         | terminal, discuss in terminal, switch models, every change is a
         | commit, run terminal commands with ! at the start.
         | 
         | Full codebase is more expensive and slower than relevant files.
         | I understand when you don't worry about the cost, but at
         | reasonable size pasting full codebase can't be really a thing.
        
           | t1amat wrote:
           | Use a tool like repomix (npm), which has extensions in some
           | editors (at least VSCode) that can quickly bundle source
           | files into a machine readable format
        
         | fasdfasdf11234 wrote:
         | Isn't this similar to
         | https://aider.chat/docs/usage/copypaste.html
         | 
         | Just checked to see how it works. It seems that it does all
         | that you are describing. The difference is in the way that it
         | provides the files - it doesn't use xml format.
         | 
         | If you wish you could /add * to add all your files.
         | 
         | Also deducing from this mode it seems that any file that you
         | add to aider chat with /add has its full contents added to the
         | chat context.
         | 
         | But hey I might be wrong. Did a limited test with 3 files in
         | project.
        
           | asadm wrote:
           | that's correct. aider doesn't RAG on files which is good. I
           | don't use it because 1) UI is so slow and clunky 2) using
           | gemini 2.5 via api in this way (huge context window) is
           | expensive but also heavily rate limited at this point. No
           | such issue when used via aistudio ui.
        
             | fasdfasdf11234 wrote:
             | You could use aider copy-paste with aistudio ui or any
             | other web chat. You could use gemini-2.0-flash for the
             | aider model that will apply the changes. But I understand
             | your first point.
             | 
             | I also understand having build your own tool to fit your
             | own workflow. And being able to easily mold it to what you
             | need.
        
               | asadm wrote:
               | yup exactly. as weird workflows emerge it's nicer to have
               | your own weird tooling around this until we all converge
               | to one optimal way.
        
       | CSMastermind wrote:
       | Hopefully it works better Claude Code which was an absolute
       | nightmare to set up and run on Windows.
        
         | slig wrote:
         | It doesn't support Windows, you have to use WSL as well.
        
       | noidesto wrote:
       | I've had great results with the Amazon Q developer cli, ever
       | since it became agentic. I believe it's using claude-3.7-sonnet
       | under the hood.
        
         | sagarpatil wrote:
         | How does it compare to Claude Code
        
           | noidesto wrote:
           | I haven't used Claude Code. But one major difference is Q Cli
           | is $19/month with generous limits.
        
       | jamesy0ung wrote:
       | It's a real shame sandbox-exec is deprecated.
        
       | est wrote:
       | If anyone else is wondering, it's not a local model, it uploads
       | your code to online API.
       | 
       | Great tool for open-source projects, but careful with anything
       | you don't want be public
        
       | ramoz wrote:
       | Claude Code represents something far more than a coding
       | capability to me. It can do anything a human can do within a
       | terminal.
       | 
       | It's exceptionally good at coding. Amazing software, really, I'm
       | sure the cost hurdles will be resolved. Yet still often worth the
       | spend
        
         | stitched2gethr wrote:
         | > It can do anything a human can do within a terminal.
         | 
         | This.. isn't true.
        
       | dgunay wrote:
       | This is a decent start. The sandboxing functionality is a really
       | cool idea but can run into problems (e.g. with Go build cache
       | being outside of the repository).
        
       | usecodenaija wrote:
       | So, OpenAI's Codex CLI is Claude Code, but worse?
       | 
       | Cursor-Agent-Tools > Claude Code > Codex CLI
       | 
       | https://pypi.org/project/cursor-agent-tools/
        
         | oulipo wrote:
         | I've been quite unimpressed by Codex for now... even the
         | quality of the code is worse than Claude for me
        
         | killerstorm wrote:
         | This tool has nothing to do with Cursor.
         | 
         | Very misleading to use popular brand like that, possible scam.
        
           | usecodenaija wrote:
           | Maybe read the docs before replying:
           | 
           | Cursor Agent Tools is a Python-based AI agent that replicates
           | Cursor's coding assistant capabilities, enabling function
           | calling, code generation, and intelligent coding assistance
           | with Claude, OpenAI, and locally hosted Ollama models.
           | 
           | https://github.com/civai-technologies/cursor-agent
        
       | shekhargulati wrote:
       | Not sure why they used React for a CLI. The code in the repo
       | feels like it was written by an LLM--too many inline comments.
       | Interestingly, their agent's system prompt mentions removing
       | inline comments https://github.com/openai/codex/blob/main/codex-
       | cli/src/util....
       | 
       | > - Remove all inline comments you added as much as possible,
       | even if they look normal. Check using \\`git diff\\`. Inline
       | comments must be generally avoided, unless active maintainers of
       | the repo, after long careful study of the code and the issue,
       | will still misinterpret the code without the comments.
        
         | kristianp wrote:
         | I find it irritating too when companies use react for a command
         | line utility. I think its just my preference for anything else
         | but javascript.
        
       | sim7c00 wrote:
       | notes "Zero setup -- bring your OpenAI API key and it just
       | works!"
       | 
       | requires NPM >.>
        
       | jackchina wrote:
       | Claude Code has outstanding performance in code understanding and
       | web page generation stability, thanks to its deep context
       | modeling and architecture-aware mechanism, especially when
       | dealing with legacy systems, it can accurately restore component
       | relationships. Although Codex CLI (o4-mini) is open source and
       | responsive, its hallucination problems in complex architectures
       | may be related to the compression strategy of the sparse expert
       | hybrid architecture and the training goal of prioritizing
       | generation speed. OpenAI is optimizing Codex CLI by integrating
       | the context control capabilities of Windsurf IDE, and plans to
       | introduce a hybrid inference pipeline in the o3-pro version to
       | reduce the hallucination rate.
        
       | p3rry wrote:
       | I had built this few weeks back on same thought
       | https://github.com/shubhamparamhans/Associate-AI-EM/
        
       | baalimago wrote:
       | You can try out the same thing in my homemade tool clai[1]. Just
       | run `clai -cm gpt-4.1 -tools query Analyze this repository`.
       | 
       | Benefit of clai: you can swap out to practically any model, from
       | any vendor. Just change `-cm gpt-4.1` to, for example, `-cm
       | claude-3-7-sonnet-latest`.
       | 
       | Detriments of clai: it's a hobby project, much less flashy,
       | designed after my own usecases with not that much attention put
       | into anyone else
       | 
       | [1]: https://github.com/baalimago/clai
        
       | WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
       | typescript & npm slopware...
       | 
       | i can't believe it
       | 
       | and i can't believe nobody else is complaining
       | 
       | my simulation is definitely on very hard mode
        
       | 999900000999 wrote:
       | From my experience with playing with Claude Code vs Cline( which
       | is open source and the tool to beat imo). I don't want anything
       | that doesn't let me set my own models.
       | 
       | Deepseek is about 1/20th of the price and only slightly behind
       | Claude.
       | 
       | Both have a tendency to over engineer. It's like a junior
       | engineer who treats LOC as a KPI.
        
       | kristianp wrote:
       | I've been using Aider, it was irritating to use (couldn't supply
       | changes in the diff format) until I switched away from chatgpt-4o
       | to Claude 3.7 and then Gemini 2.5. This is admittedly for a small
       | project. Gpt 4.1 should do better with the diff format so I will
       | give it a go.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-04-17 23:01 UTC)