Shiro Neko

An agentic coding CLI. It reads your code, edits it, runs your tests, and asks when the request is ambiguous — in a terminal UI, with every mutating action gated behind an approval prompt.

Install

A single prebuilt binary. No runtime, no node_modules.

# macOS, Linux
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zakirkun/shiro-neko/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

# Windows
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zakirkun/shiro-neko/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

Both verify the download against the release checksums before installing. Builds are published for linux-x64, linux-arm64, darwin-x64, darwin-arm64, and windows-x64.

Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/zakirkun/shiro-neko
cd shiro-neko
bun install
bun run install:local   # builds and puts `shiro` on PATH

First run

shiro

With no API key configured it opens provider setup: pick an endpoint, paste a key, choose from the models that endpoint actually reports. Settings land in ~/.shiro-neko/config.json. Run /provider any time to change them.

shiro-neko 0.1.0-beta.3  openai/gpt-5  session 0193ab2c
agent: default  thinking: medium
cwd: /home/you/project
skills: debug, refactor, review, test
plugins: guard, time
approvals: ask for write_file, edit_file, multi_edit, bash, mcp__*
/help for commands

> why does the pagination test fail?

What it does

Answers about your code, grounded in your code. grep goes through ripgrep when it is installed and honours .gitignore. list_dir gives an ignore-aware tree so it stops globbing blindly to orient, and read_many_files pulls a batch in one round trip. read_file refuses binaries rather than filling the context with mojibake.

Edits with your approval, gated per command. write_file, edit_file, multi_edit, and bash stop for a y/a/n decision, with a coloured diff for edits. Rules match the command or path rather than the tool, so git * can run unprompted while everything else still asks — answering a whitelists that pattern, not the whole tool. .env and .pem files are refused on read outright. The guard plugin refuses irreversible commands ahead of any of it — rm -rf, git reset --hard, force pushes, DROP TABLE — and --yolo cannot bypass it.

Shows its work. Reasoning streams to a collapsed panel you can expand with ctrl-r, the tool in flight is named as it runs, and bash output streams live instead of arriving all at once when the command exits. ctrl-c kills a runaway command without ending the turn.

Takes prompts while it works. Type during a turn and it queues; the queue drains in order when the turn ends. esc interrupts and clears it. @ completes workspace paths.

Reads git without touching it. git_status, git_diff, git_log, git_show, and git_blame are approval-free, because they spawn git with a fixed argument list and cannot mutate anything.

Asks instead of guessing. When a request has two readings that lead to different work, the agent puts a question on screen with options.

Delegates searches. task spawns a read-only subagent whose findings come back as one message, so a search across forty files does not fill the main context. Its progress streams to a panel.

Extensible from the prompt. /registry browses external skills and plugins and installs them with one confirmation. A skill is shown in full before its text joins your system prompt; a plugin is a manifest of refusal rules, never code.

Remembers between sessions. Decisions, working commands, and traps go into per-project memory that is injected at the start of every future session.

Survives long tasks. The task list and project memory live outside the message array, so they survive both automatic pruning and /compact.

Runs headless. shiro -p "review this diff" --json for scripts and CI.

Keeps the tool list affordable. Fourteen built-in tools, grouped into sets. Each costs about 550 characters of schema on every request, so { "toolSets": [] } trims back to the six core ones and a disabled set reaches neither the wire nor the prompt.

Documentation

Start with whichever question you have. Each guide says what it decided and why, not just what the flags are.

Guide	Contents
Configuration	config file, provider presets, environment, every flag
Tools	every tool, tool sets and what they cost, the approval model
Permissions	allow/ask/deny rules, patterns, defaults, the repeat guard
Agents and thinking	variants, thinking levels, step caps, which to reach for
Skills	the bundled skills, writing your own, why the catalogue is split
Plugins	the interface, the guard and its limits, builtin versus installed
Registry	installing external skills and plugins, publishing your own
Memory and state	memory, task lists, sessions, compaction and its repair
MCP	connecting servers, namespacing, cost, debugging one
Headless mode	-p, JSON events, exit codes, CI recipes
Architecture	how the loop works and why it is built this way
Development	building, testing, adding a tool, releasing
Roadmap	what is next and what has been declined
TODO	the current work list, with known rough edges

Commands

Type / and a menu appears, narrowing as you type.

/help  /agent [name]  /think [level]  /provider  /models  /model <id>
/skills  /plugins  /registry [search|add|remove]  /init  /context
/todos  /notes  /memory  /tools  /compact  /cost
/sessions  /resume <id>  /save  /clear  /exit

esc dismisses a panel, interrupts a running turn, and clears the queue. ctrl-c kills the running command but keeps the turn. ctrl-r expands the reasoning panel. @ completes a workspace path. Up and down recall earlier prompts.

Status

Working: the agent loop, tool approvals, subagents, skills, plugins, per-project memory, session persistence, MCP, markdown rendering, headless mode, five-platform builds, streaming reasoning display, the mid-turn prompt queue, gateable tool sets, read-only git tools, batch reads, @file completion, interruptible commands, and the external registry.

Next up is in TODO.md; the longer view and what has been declined are in ROADMAP.md. The short version of what is missing: a summary of what compaction discarded, web_fetch, a spend ceiling, and a cheaper model for subagent searches.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.