cecli Documentation

cecli is AI pair programming in your terminal. This documentation will help you get the most out of cecli.

• Agent Mode
• Custom Commands
• Custom System Prompts
• Security Configuration
• Skills System
• TUI Mode
• Session Management
• Installation — How to install and get started pair programming with cecli.
  • Optional steps
  • cecli with docker
  • GitHub Codespaces
  • Replit
• Usage — How to use cecli to pair program with AI and edit code in your local git repo.
  • Tips — Tips for AI pair programming with cecli.
  • In-chat commands — Control cecli with in-chat commands like /add, /model, etc.
  • Chat modes — Using the code, architect, ask and help chat modes.
  • Tutorial videos — Intro and tutorial videos made by cecli users.
  • Voice-to-code with cecli — Speak with cecli about your code!
  • Images & web pages — Add images and web pages to the cecli coding chat.
  • Prompt caching — cecli supports prompt caching for cost savings and faster coding.
  • cecli in your IDE — cecli can watch your files and respond to AI comments you add in your favorite IDE or text editor.
  • Notifications — cecli can notify you when it's waiting for your input.
  • cecli in your browser — cecli can run in your browser, not just on the command line.
  • Specifying coding conventions — Tell cecli to follow your coding conventions when it works on your code.
  • Copy/paste with web chat — cecli works with LLM web chat UIs
  • Linting and testing — Automatically fix linting and testing errors.
  • Editing config & text files — Use cecli to edit configuration files, documentation, and other text-based formats.
• Connecting to LLMs — cecli can connect to most LLMs for AI pair programming.
  • OpenAI
  • Anthropic
  • Gemini
  • GROQ
  • LM Studio
  • xAI
  • Azure
  • Cohere
  • DeepSeek
  • Ollama
  • OpenAI compatible APIs
  • OpenRouter
  • GitHub Copilot
  • Vertex AI
  • Amazon Bedrock
  • Other LLMs
  • Model warnings
• Configuration — Information on all of cecli's settings and how to use them.
  • API Keys — Setting API keys for API providers.
  • Options reference — Details about all of cecli's settings.
  • YAML config file — How to configure cecli with a YAML config file.
  • Config with .env — Using a .env file to store LLM API keys for cecli.
  • Editor configuration — How to configure a custom editor for cecli's /editor command
  • Reasoning models — How to configure reasoning model settings from secondary providers.
  • Model Control Protocol (MCP) — Configure Model Control Protocol (MCP) servers for enhanced AI capabilities.
  • Advanced model settings — Configuring advanced settings for LLMs.
  • Model Aliases — Assign convenient short names to models.
• Troubleshooting — How to troubleshoot problems with cecli and get help.
  • File editing problems
  • Model warnings
  • Token limits
  • cecli not found
  • Dependency versions
  • Models and API keys
  • Using /help
• Screen recordings — Screen recordings of cecli building cecli.
  • Add language support via tree-sitter-language-pack — Watch how cecli adds support for tons of new programming languages by integrating with tree-sitter-language-pack. Demonstrates using aider to script downloading a collection of files, and using ad-hoc bash scripts to have cecli modify a collection of files.
  • Add –auto-accept-architect feature — See how a new command-line option is added to automatically accept edits proposed by the architect model, with implementation. cecli also updates the project's HISTORY file.
  • Don’t /drop read-only files added at launch — Follow along as cecli is modified to preserve read-only files specified at launch when using the /drop command. cecli does this implementation and adds test coverage.
  • Warn when users apply unsupported reasoning settings — Watch the implementation of a warning system that alerts users when they try to apply reasoning settings to models that don't support them. Includes adding model metadata, confirmation dialogs, refactoring, and comprehensive test coverage.
• Example chat transcripts
  • Editing an asciinema cast file with aider
  • Download, analyze and plot US Census data
  • Improve css styling of chat transcripts
  • Complete a css exercise with aider
  • Hello aider!
  • Honor the NO_COLOR environment variable
  • Build pong with aider and pygame.
  • Semantic search & replace code with aider
  • Automatically update docs with aider
  • Create a simple flask app with aider
  • Modify an open source 2048 game with aider
  • A complex multi-file change, with debugging
  • Create a “black box” test case
• More info
  • Git integration — cecli is tightly integrated with git.
  • Supported languages — cecli supports pretty much all popular coding languages.
  • Repository map — cecli uses a map of your git repository to provide code context to LLMs.
  • Scripting cecli — You can script cecli via the command line or python.
  • Infinite output — cecli can handle "infinite output" from models that support prefill.
  • Edit formats — cecli uses various "edit formats" to let LLMs edit source files.
  • Analytics — Opt-in, anonymous, no personal info.
  • Privacy policy
• FAQ — Frequently asked questions about cecli.
• Release history — Release notes and stats on aider writing its own code.
• cecli LLM Leaderboards — Quantitative benchmarks of LLM code editing skill.
  • Code editing leaderboard — Quantitative benchmark of basic LLM code editing skill.
  • Refactoring leaderboard — Quantitative benchmark of LLM code refactoring skill.
  • Scores by release date
  • Benchmark notes
  • Contributing results