stippi/code-assistant

An open-source AI coding agent, written in Rust, with a native GUI, a terminal
mode, and integrations for editors and MCP clients. It runs an autonomous agent
loop over your codebase — reading, searching, editing files, and running
commands — while keeping you in the loop about what it is actually doing.
Getting started
The quickest way to try it is a prebuilt download — no toolchain required:
1. Grab the latest build from the **Releases page**:
- **macOS:** Code-Assistant-macos-aarch64.app.zip (Apple Silicon) or Code-Assistant-macos-x86_64.app.zip (Intel)
- **Linux:** code-assistant-linux-x86_64.zip
- **Windows:** code-assistant-windows-x86_64.zip
2. Launch it. On first start, code-assistant opens its **Settings** screen.
Pick a provider (there are one-click suggestions for the common ones), paste
an API key, and choose a model — that's it.
3. Add your project folder from within the app and start a chat.
No hand-editing of JSON files required to get going. (You still can, if you
prefer — see the Configuration guide.)
Build from source instead
The binary lands at target/release/code-assistant. See the
Configuration guide for building a self-contained
macOS .app bundle.
What makes it different
A handful of things we care about:
- **A UI you can actually follow.** Instead of a terse "Called 5 tools",
code-assistant shows which tools ran and what each of them
handed back to the model as context. When it goes off the rails, you can see
why.
- **Format-on-save that stays token-efficient.** When your project auto-formats
code, an agent's mental picture of a file goes stale and its follow-up edits
start failing for non-obvious reasons. code-assistant runs your formatter and
then reconciles the model's own edits with the formatted result — without
wasting tokens on re-reading files. See
docs/format-on-save-feature.md.
- **Transparent file encoding & line endings.** It reads a file however it is
stored (encoding, BOM, CRLF/LF), gives the model clean text, and writes it
back the way it was — so it never silently rewrites your line endings.
- **Searches and reads documents, not just code.** Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
PDF and more are consumed automatically as Markdown, so you can point the
agent at real-world documents alongside your source.
Features
- **Multiple LLM providers:** Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Vertex AI, Ollama,
OpenRouter, SAP AI Core, Groq, Cerebras, Mistral, and more.
- **Four ways to work:** a native GUI (built on Zed's GPUI), a terminal mode, a
headless MCP server, and an ACP agent for editors like Zed.
- **Adaptive tool syntax:** native function calling, XML tags, or triple-caret
blocks — chosen per session to fit the model.
- **Real-time streaming** with smart filtering that blocks unsafe tool
combinations (e.g. editing a file before reading it).
- **Sessions per project** with branching, persistent state, and draft messages
with attachments.
- **Sub-agents, permission tiers, a command sandbox,** and automatic context
compaction when the window fills up.
- **MCP client mode:** plug in external Model Context Protocol servers and use