Upstream Aider-AI/aider has shipped no releases since August 2025 and has not merged community PRs (including an approved MCP PR) for months. This fork picks up the slack with a focus on:
- Local LLMs — sensible per-model defaults (qwen3-coder, mistral-nemo, llama3.1, …) so Ollama / llama.cpp / LM Studio users get a working setup without flag-tuning. See docs/features/local-models.md.
- MCP support — connect any Model Context Protocol server with permission gating and persistent decisions. See docs/features/mcp.md.
- Quality-of-life upgrades — color theming, configurable status bar, streaming-markdown improvements, skills system. See docs/features/.
pipx install "aider-chat[mcp] @ git+https://github.com/diverdale/aider.git@mcp-support"Personal fork, no support promises. Issues welcome but response time isn't guaranteed. If upstream resumes activity, we'll attempt to upstream features that fit; until then, this fork is a self-contained alternative for users who want active maintenance now.
Everything below this banner is upstream's original README, kept intact for reference.
Aider lets you pair program with LLMs to start a new project or build on your existing codebase.
python -m pip install aider-install
aider-install
# Change directory into your codebase
cd /to/your/project
# DeepSeek
aider --model deepseek --api-key deepseek=<key>
# Claude 3.7 Sonnet
aider --model sonnet --api-key anthropic=<key>
# o3-mini
aider --model o3-mini --api-key openai=<key>See the installation instructions and usage documentation for more details.
- Installation Guide
- Usage Guide
- Tutorial Videos
- Connecting to LLMs
- Configuration Options
- Troubleshooting
- FAQ
- "My life has changed... Aider... It's going to rock your world." — Eric S. Raymond on X
- "The best free open source AI coding assistant." — IndyDevDan on YouTube
- "The best AI coding assistant so far." — Matthew Berman on YouTube
- "Aider ... has easily quadrupled my coding productivity." — SOLAR_FIELDS on Hacker News
- "It's a cool workflow... Aider's ergonomics are perfect for me." — qup on Hacker News
- "It's really like having your senior developer live right in your Git repo - truly amazing!" — rappster on GitHub
- "What an amazing tool. It's incredible." — valyagolev on GitHub
- "Aider is such an astounding thing!" — cgrothaus on GitHub
- "It was WAY faster than I would be getting off the ground and making the first few working versions." — Daniel Feldman on X
- "THANK YOU for Aider! It really feels like a glimpse into the future of coding." — derwiki on Hacker News
- "It's just amazing. It is freeing me to do things I felt were out my comfort zone before." — Dougie on Discord
- "This project is stellar." — funkytaco on GitHub
- "Amazing project, definitely the best AI coding assistant I've used." — joshuavial on GitHub
- "I absolutely love using Aider ... It makes software development feel so much lighter as an experience." — principalideal0 on Discord
- "I have been recovering from ... surgeries ... aider ... has allowed me to continue productivity." — codeninja on Reddit
- "I am an aider addict. I'm getting so much more work done, but in less time." — dandandan on Discord
- "Aider... blows everything else out of the water hands down, there's no competition whatsoever." — SystemSculpt on Discord
- "Aider is amazing, coupled with Sonnet 3.5 it's quite mind blowing." — Josh Dingus on Discord
- "Hands down, this is the best AI coding assistant tool so far." — IndyDevDan on YouTube
- "[Aider] changed my daily coding workflows. It's mind-blowing how ...(it)... can change your life." — maledorak on Discord
- "Best agent for actual dev work in existing codebases." — Nick Dobos on X
- "One of my favorite pieces of software. Blazing trails on new paradigms!" — Chris Wall on X
- "Aider has been revolutionary for me and my work." — Starry Hope on X
- "Try aider! One of the best ways to vibe code." — Chris Wall on X
- "Freaking love Aider." — hztar on Hacker News
- "Aider is hands down the best. And it's free and opensource." — AriyaSavakaLurker on Reddit
- "Aider is also my best friend." — jzn21 on Reddit
- "Try Aider, it's worth it." — jorgejhms on Reddit
- "I like aider :)" — Chenwei Cui on X
- "Aider is the precision tool of LLM code gen... Minimal, thoughtful and capable of surgical changes ... while keeping the developer in control." — Reilly Sweetland on X
- "Cannot believe aider vibe coded a 650 LOC feature across service and cli today in 1 shot." - autopoietist on Discord
- "Oh no the secret is out! Yes, Aider is the best coding tool around. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone." — Joshua D Vander Hook on X
- "thanks to aider, i have started and finished three personal projects within the last two days" — joseph stalzyn on X
- "Been using aider as my daily driver for over a year ... I absolutely love the tool, like beyond words." — koleok on Discord
- "Aider ... is the tool to benchmark against." — BeetleB on Hacker News
- "aider is really cool" — kache on X