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.1  openai/gpt-5  session 0193ab2c
agent: default  thinking: medium
cwd: /home/you/project
skills: debug, refactor, review, test
plugins: guard, time
approvals: on for write_file, edit_file, 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. read_file refuses binaries rather than filling the context with mojibake.

Edits with your approval. Every write_file, edit_file, and bash call stops for a y/a/n decision, with a coloured diff for edits. The guard plugin refuses irreversible commands outright — rm -rf, git reset --hard, force pushes, DROP TABLE — and --yolo cannot bypass it.

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.

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.

Documentation

Guide	Contents
Configuration	config file, environment variables, every flag
Tools	every tool, the approval model, the guard
Agents and thinking	variants, thinking levels, read-only modes
Skills	the bundled skills and writing your own
Plugins	the plugin interface and the builtins
Memory and state	memory, task lists, sessions, compaction
MCP	connecting Model Context Protocol servers
Headless mode	`-p`, JSON events, exit codes, CI recipes
Architecture	how the loop works and why it is built this way
Development	building, testing, releasing
Roadmap	what is next and what has been declined
TODO	the current work list

Commands

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

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

esc dismisses a panel or interrupts a running turn. 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.

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: streaming reasoning display, a message queue for prompts typed mid-turn, @file completion, and git-aware tools.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.