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Add-ons & integrations · Editor

Cline

★ 64.956

An open-source, autonomous coding agent — as a VS Code extension, CLI and SDK. It runs commands directly in your terminal, watches the output live and reacts to errors.

Cline is an autonomous coding agent that lives primarily in VS Code but is also available as a CLI and SDK. It separates a plan mode (agree on the approach) from an act mode (do it), edits files, runs terminal commands and watches their output in real time — catching compile errors, failing tests or server crashes as they happen. Cline brings no model access of its own; it uses your API key (Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter or local models) and supports MCP servers for extra tools. For automation it can run headless via the CLI in CI/CD.

🔧 SETUP

  1. VS Code: install the "Cline" extension from the marketplace (item id `saoudrizwan.claude-dev`)
  2. CLI: `npm i -g cline` — interactive or headless for CI/CD
  3. SDK: `npm install @cline/sdk`
  4. Provide your own API key (Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter or a local model)

✅ WHEN TO USE IT?

Agentic coding right inside VS Code

Cline plans, edits files, runs tests/builds and reads the terminal output live — with a clear plan/act split.

Full control over model and cost

Bring-your-own-key instead of a subscription — free model choice including local models.

⛔ WHEN NOT TO?

No API budget / no key of your own

Cline needs its own model access; without a key or credit nothing runs.

Better: Use a tool with its own subscription/quota.

A purely terminal-based workflow without an IDE

Its strength is the VS Code integration; the CLI is younger.

Better: Use a dedicated CLI agent (e.g. Claude Code, Codex).

SOURCES