Cline

Cline reads a project's structure, works out how files relate to each other and makes coordinated changes across a codebase. It watches linter and compiler output while it works, catching missing imports, type mismatches and syntax errors before you see them.

One engine sits behind every client: the VS Code extension, the JetBrains plugin, the CLI, the kanban board and a Node SDK for building your own. In the editors, each change appears as a reviewable diff, and checkpoints let you undo the agent's work wholesale.

The pieces that decide how much rope the agent gets are yours to set.

• Plan and Act: explore and agree a strategy first, then switch to execution, approving each edit or letting it run unattended.
• Bash commands: runs commands and reads output live, staying with dev servers to react to crashes and test failures.
• Rules and skills: clinerules files carry coding standards and conventions, picked up by every client automatically.
• Kanban board: many agents in parallel, each card getting its own worktree, auto-commit and dependency chains.
• Model choice: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Bedrock, Vertex, OpenRouter, Groq, Ollama, LM Studio or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
• Plugins and MCP: register tools and lifecycle hooks through the SDK for logging, auditing or policy enforcement.

The CLI and kanban board install from npm and the extensions from their marketplaces. The JetBrains client is not open source, though the agent core it talks to is.