SWE-CLI: One-Stop, Cost Effective CLI-based Coding Agent for Modern Software Engineering

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🎬 Demo

Interactive coding assistant in action

📖 Overview

SWE-CLI is a one-stop coding agent that interacts with users through a powerful command-line interface. Created with the goal to democratize how coding agents are built, designed, and optimized, SWE-CLI aims to be comparable to state-of-the-art CLI tools on the market while remaining fully open-source and bringing substantial benefits to the developer community.

We support standard features such as MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration, shell command execution, session and context management, and multi-provider LLM support. Beyond these foundations, we plan to deliver unique capabilities including:

• GitHub Issue Resolution: Automated issue fixing following state-of-the-art scaffolds like SWE-Agent, Agentless, and HyperAgent
• Intelligent Code Understanding: LSP-powered codebase analysis for accurate context-aware assistance
• Sub-Agent Architecture: Specialized agents for different coding tasks (testing, refactoring, documentation)
• CI/CD Integration: Seamless connection with GitHub workflows for automated development pipelines
• Paper2Code & Text2Web: Advanced code generation from research papers and natural language specifications

Built on SOLID principles with dependency injection and interface-driven design, SWE-CLI serves not only as a powerful development tool but also as an educational resource for understanding modern agentic system architecture.

✨ Features

✅ Ready Features

• Interactive Coding Agent that Understand Codebase
• Basic Access to Shell Commands and Control Them Through LLMs
• Context Management
• Compact Context Automatically
• Session Management
• MCP Support
• Switch between Plan Mode and Normal Mode

🔄 In-Progress

• Compatible with Multiple Providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Fireworks AI, Z.ai, DeepSeek, Alibaba Cloud)
• Coding Rules
• LSP for Accurate Codebase Understanding
• Github Issues Resolve (across scaffolds: SWE-Agent, Agentless, HyperAgent)
• UI Management

📋 In-Plan

• Sub-Agents
• Connect with Github CI/CD workflows
• Paper2Code
• Text2Web
• CodeWiki Integration

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install swe-cli

pip

pip install swe-cli

From source

git clone https://github.com/swe-cli/swe-cli.git
cd swe-cli
pip install -e .

Usage

Run swecli to start the interactive coding assistant:

swecli

Configure your settings in ~/.swecli/settings.json:

{
  "provider": "fireworks",
  "api_key": "your-api-key-here",
  "model": "accounts/fireworks/models/llama-v3p1-70b-instruct"
}

For more details, see the documentation.

⚙️ Configuration

SWE-CLI uses JSON configuration with environment variable support:

Example (config-fireworks-sample.json):

{
  "providers": {
    "fireworks": {
      "api_key": "$FIREWORKS_API_KEY",
      "default_model": "accounts/fireworks/models/llama-v3p1-70b-instruct"
    }
  },
  "experimental": {
    "use_pydantic_ai": false
  },
  "permissions": {
    "skip_requests": true
  }
}

Key Configuration Options:

• providers - LLM provider configurations (Anthropic, OpenAI, Fireworks)
• experimental.use_pydantic_ai - Enable PydanticAI engine (Phase 1 complete)
• permissions.skip_requests - Skip tool approval prompts

🏗️ Architecture

src/swecli/
├── ui/                      # User Interface Layer (SOLID-refactored)
│   ├── chat_engine.py       # Main orchestrator
│   ├── interfaces.py        # Service abstractions
│   ├── services/            # SOLID-compliant services
│   └── main_ui.py           # UI entry point
├── llm/                     # LLM Integration
│   ├── providers/           # Provider implementations
│   ├── manager.py           # Multi-provider orchestration
│   └── base.py              # Base classes and types
├── tools/                   # Tool System
│   ├── filesystem.py        # File operations
│   ├── shell.py             # Shell execution
│   ├── search.py            # Code search
│   ├── edit.py              # File editing
│   └── registry.py          # Tool registry
├── pydantic_ai/             # PydanticAI Integration (Experimental)
│   └── adapter.py           # PydanticAI chat engine
└── config/                  # Configuration Management
    ├── models.py            # Pydantic models
    └── loader.py            # Config loading

🎯 Design Principles

📄 License