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.4 openai/gpt-5 session 0193ab2c
agent: default thinking: medium
cwd: /home/you/project
skills: commit, debug, refactor, review, test, verify
plugins: guard, time
approvals: ask for write_file, edit_file, multi_edit, apply_patch, bash, web_fetch, 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,
apply_patch, and bash stop for a y/a/n decision, with a coloured diff for edits.
apply_patch lands one atomic patch across files — add, update, move, delete — and nothing is
written if any part of it fails. 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 with the arguments that identify the call, 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.
Fetches docs when the codebase cannot answer. web_fetch pulls a public page and returns
it as markdown — a changelog, an RFC, a migration guide — size-capped and stripped of anything
that is not text. It lives in the opt-in net tool set: the one tool that leaves the machine
is a decision rather than a default, and it asks before every call.
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 work. task spawns a subagent with its own context window whose findings come
back as one message, so a search across forty files does not fill the main context. explore
and review are read-only; worker also edits and runs commands, and every one of its writes
stops at the same approval prompt as yours. 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. Pruning itself is bounded: it drops
reasoning first and keeps the widest recent tool tail that fits, so the model keeps its
record of what it already ran instead of repeating it.
Runs headless. shiro -p "review this diff" --json for scripts and CI.
Keeps the tool list affordable. Sixteen 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 /undo /cost /max-spend [usd]
/sessions /resume <id> /save /clear /exit
Your own slash commands live in .shiro/commands.md — see
docs/user-commands.md. /undo restores the files a
completed turn changed and rewinds — see docs/undo.md.
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 including the gated worker kind, 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, apply_patch, web_fetch, @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, a spend ceiling, and a cheaper model for subagent searches.
License
MIT. See LICENSE.