kimchi

A coding agent CLI powered by kimchi. Built on the pi-mono coding agent SDK, kimchi gives you an AI-powered development assistant in your terminal that connects to kimchi's LLM infrastructure.

Quick start

Install the latest release:

Homebrew (macOS / Linux):

brew install getkimchi/tap/kimchi

Install script:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/castai/kimchi/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash

Then configure your API key and launch:

kimchi setup   # one-time interactive setup
kimchi         # launch the coding agent

Run kimchi --help to see all available subcommands and flags.

Models

Model selection

The supported model list is fetched at startup from the kimchi metadata service. Use /model or ctrl+p in the interactive CLI to switch between available models.

Kimchi operates in one of two modes:

Mode	Footer indicator	Behavior
Multi-model	multi-model (orchestrator-id)	The orchestrator delegates each task to the model assigned for that role
Single-model	model name	All work runs on the selected model directly

Use ctrl+p to cycle through models. The last entry in the cycle is multi-model. You can also open the /model picker and select a specific model or multi-model from the list.

In single-model mode the orchestration system prompt (environment, tools, research rules, guidelines, phase tagging) stays active, but task classification and delegation are disabled. The subagent tool remains available if you explicitly ask the agent to delegate.

Model roles

In multi-model mode, each task type is handled by a specific role. Use /multi-model in the interactive CLI to assign models to roles, or edit ~/.config/kimchi/harness/settings.json directly:

{
  "modelRoles": {
    "orchestrator": "kimchi-dev/kimi-k2.6",
    "planner": "kimchi-dev/kimi-k2.6",
    "builder": "kimchi-dev/minimax-m2.7",
    "reviewer": "kimchi-dev/minimax-m2.7",
    "explorer": "kimchi-dev/nemotron-3-super-fp4"
  }
}

Role	Default	Description
orchestrator	kimchi-dev/kimi-k2.6	Runs the main loop, delegates work to other roles
planner	kimchi-dev/kimi-k2.6	Designs the approach, writes specs. When set to the same model as orchestrator, planning is done in-process
builder	kimchi-dev/minimax-m2.7	Code implementation, refactoring
reviewer	kimchi-dev/minimax-m2.7	Code review, finding bugs, verifying correctness
explorer	kimchi-dev/nemotron-3-super-fp4	Codebase exploration, reading files, tracing architecture, research

Roles accept any provider/model-id string — kimchi-dev models, or models from other providers configured in models.json (e.g. anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5, openai/gpt-4o). Only non-default values need to be specified; missing keys fall back to the defaults above.

Phase tracking

Kimchi tags every LLM request with a phase:{name} label for usage analytics and cost attribution. The orchestrator sets the phase as work progresses and it is displayed in the footer.

Phase	Description
explore	Navigating the codebase, reading files to understand structure
plan	Designing, breaking down tasks, writing specs
build	Writing, modifying, or refactoring code
review	Analyzing output, verifying correctness
research	Investigating documentation, researching issues

Subagents inherit the current phase from the orchestrator but cannot change it.

Tags

Kimchi supports tagging LLM requests for usage tracking and cost attribution. Tags are included with every request and displayed in the footer, grouped by key with color coding.

Commands

Command	Description
/tags	List all active tags
/tags add key:value ...	Add one or more tags (e.g., /tags add project:myapp team:backend)
/tags remove tag ...	Remove one or more user-defined tags
/tags clear	Remove all user-defined tags

Tag format

Tags use key:value format. Key and value must start and end with alphanumeric characters (middle characters may include -, _, .), each 64 characters max, 10 tags total.

Static tags

Set via the KIMCHI_TAGS environment variable (comma-separated). Static tags are read-only within the session and shown with a [static] marker.

export KIMCHI_TAGS="team:backend,project:api"

Auto-tags

Two tags are added automatically to every request and do not count toward the 10 tag limit:

• model:{model_id} -- the model handling the request
• phase:{phase} -- the current work phase

Persistence

User-defined tags (added via /tags add) are persisted to ~/.config/kimchi/tags.json and survive across sessions. Static tags from KIMCHI_TAGS must be set each session.

Ferment -- cross-session project management

Ferment is Kimchi's progressive-refinement project mode for multi-session work. Instead of starting from scratch each chat, Ferment persists a structured plan (goal, phases, steps) as a JSON state file.

Quick start

kimchi --ferment "Build Tetris"

Or inside an active session:

/ferment new "Build Tetris"    # create a ferment
/ferment auto                   # keep going until done or blocked

Concepts

• Ferment -- the top-level project (e.g. "Build Tetris", "Auth rewrite")
• Phase -- a milestone within the project (e.g. "Canvas & Grid", "Movement")
• Step -- a single executable task within a phase (e.g. "Create index.html")
• Decision -- an architectural choice recorded for posterity
• Memory -- a gotcha, convention, or pattern encountered during work

State machine

All lifecycle transitions are validated by a deterministic finite state machine that enforces valid state changes and prevents illegal operations (e.g. completing a step before it starts, skipping an already-completed phase).

draft -> planned -> running -> [paused] -> complete

1. draft -- created via /ferment new, agent collects goal and phases conversationally
2. planned -- scope_ferment sets goal, criteria, constraints, phase breakdown
3. running -- activate_ferment_phase starts a phase, agent executes steps
4. paused -- user intervention required, or paused with /ferment pause
5. complete -- all phases terminal

Continuation policy

Controls whether the active ferment advances across phase boundaries.

Policy	Behavior	Command
manual	Ask before moving to the next phase	/ferment manual
automated	Keep going until complete, blocked, paused, or user input is needed	/ferment auto

Pause/resume is separate: /ferment pause stops the ferment, /ferment resume continues it using the current policy. /ferment exit leaves Ferment mode without deleting or abandoning the ferment; planned/running work is paused first, active Ferment UI/tools are cleared, and you can later select it from /ferment list or /ferment switch.

Commands

Command	Description
/ferment	Start a new ferment via prompt
/ferment new "Name"	Create new ferment
/ferment switch <id>	Resume by ID prefix or name
/ferment delete <id>	Delete permanently
/ferment export	Export stats to JSON
/ferment progress	Open phase/step navigator overlay
/ferment manual	Set manual continuation policy
/ferment auto	Set automated continuation policy
/ferment pause	Pause the active ferment lifecycle
/ferment resume	Resume the active ferment lifecycle
/ferment exit	Leave Ferment mode without deleting the ferment

Recovery

Every session writes a ferment_reference entry in the session log. On next start, the harness reads this entry and resumes from the exact state.

# Day 1
$ kimchi --ferment "Build Tetris"
# ... agent works, crashes, terminal closes ...

# Day 2
$ kimchi --ferment "Build Tetris"
# -> Rehydrates state, continues Phase 2 exactly where it left off

Where state lives

.kimchi/
  ferments/
    <uuid>.json          -- snapshot (machine-readable plan state)
    <uuid>.events.jsonl  -- append-only audit log of every transition
  sessions/
    <timestamp>.jsonl    -- chat history + tool calls

Every mutation is persisted as an append-only event with pre/post state hashes, enabling full auditability. Stats (phase/step counts, timing, model usage, grade distributions) are computed on demand from the snapshot and exported via /ferment export.

For full documentation see docs/ferment.md and docs/ferment-storage-schema.md.

Remote teleport (preview)

Launch with kimchi --teleport to enable session-multiplex commands. The local TUI stays the home base; remote workers are spawned, detached, and re-attached without restarting kimchi.

kimchi --teleport

Slash commands available inside the TUI:

Command	Description
/teleport [name] [flags]	Rsync the working tree to a fresh remote sandbox and foreground it. Flags: --allow-dirty, --exclude <glob>, --include-ignored, --abandon-pending, --force
/detach [--abandon-pending]	Drop the WebSocket to the foreground remote and return to the local home base. The server keeps the session running.
/attach <name-or-id>	Re-attach to a previously detached remote
/sessions	List everything: foreground remote, detached remotes, server-side sessions
/connect [name-or-id]	Open an interactive SSH shell on the sandbox via the teleport proxy

--teleport and --remote are mutually exclusive. Use --remote --session <id> to attach to a single remote at startup; use --teleport to multiplex from a local home base.

Configuration

Authentication

The API key is resolved in this order:

1. KIMCHI_API_KEY environment variable (takes precedence)
2. ~/.config/kimchi/config.json field api_key

Run kimchi setup for an interactive first-time configuration.

Agent config

Kimchi stores its configuration (settings, sessions, models) under:

~/.config/kimchi/harness/

HTTP proxy

Kimchi respects HTTP_PROXY / HTTPS_PROXY environment variables for network requests.

Token optimization (RTK)

Kimchi installs RTK during setup and keeps the rtk command available on startup. When enabled, kimchi rewrites bash tool calls through rtk rewrite before execution. This compresses command output (git, cargo, npm, docker, etc.) by 60-90%, reducing LLM context usage.

Before every bash tool execution, kimchi calls rtk rewrite "<command>". If RTK returns a rewritten command (e.g. git status becomes rtk git status), the rewritten version is executed instead.

brew install rtk    # macOS / Linux

RTK rewrite is managed from resources:

kimchi resources disable hooks.rtk-rewrite
kimchi resources enable hooks.rtk-rewrite

Hooks

Users can add custom Bash hooks to rewrite or block shell commands before they run. Global hooks live in ~/.config/kimchi/harness/hooks/bash/; project hooks live in .kimchi/hooks/bash/ and default to disabled until enabled from /resources or kimchi resources enable ....

See docs/hooks.md for the hook protocol and examples.

Migrating from another coding agent

On first run, kimchi looks for an existing Claude Code or OpenCode installation and offers to migrate its MCP servers. If anything is migratable you will see a one-shot prompt:

+  Claude Code + OpenCode configuration found
|
|  MCP servers: filesystem, github, ripgrep
|  Claude Code skills: 4 in ~/.claude/skills
|  OpenCode skills: 2 in ~/.config/opencode/skills
|
*  Migrate MCP servers to Kimchi?
|  * Migrate now
|  * Skip this time
|  * Never ask again

Discovered MCP servers are merged into ~/.config/kimchi/harness/mcp.json. Existing Kimchi entries always win on name collisions, so re-running the migration is safe.

The prompt is only shown when something is actually worth migrating. If neither agent is installed or both are empty, the wizard skips silently.

Sources scanned

Agent	Config files (read in order, results merged)	Skills directory
Claude Code	~/.claude.json (top-level mcpServers + per-project projects[*].mcpServers)	~/.claude/skills/
OpenCode	$OPENCODE_CONFIG, then ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json, opencode.jsonc, config.json, ~/.opencode.json	~/.config/opencode/skills/

For OpenCode, both the modern (mcp block) and legacy Go-binary (mcpServers block) schemas are supported. Servers with enabled: false are skipped.

Conflict resolution

When the same MCP server name appears in multiple sources:

1. Within one agent: earlier files win; project-level entries win over top-level (Claude Code); modern mcp block wins over legacy mcpServers (OpenCode).
2. Across agents: Claude Code wins over OpenCode.
3. Against existing Kimchi config: your entries in ~/.config/kimchi/harness/mcp.json always win.

"Never ask again"

Stored in ~/.config/kimchi/config.json (migrationState: "skip-forever"). Delete that field to re-trigger the prompt. Adding support for another agent is a small change -- drop a new definition into src/agent-discovery/agents/ and append it to the registry.

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22 (LTS)
• Bun (dev server and binary compilation)
• corepack enabled (corepack enable)
• pnpm (installed automatically via corepack)

Quick setup

./scripts/dev-startup.sh

This script checks and installs node, pnpm, and bun if missing, runs pnpm install, copies resources, and starts the harness with pnpm run dev.

Manual setup

git clone git@github.com:castai/kimchi.git
cd kimchi
corepack enable
pnpm install

Commands

Command	Description
pnpm run build	Compile TypeScript to dist/ and copy theme assets
pnpm run dev	Run the CLI locally via Bun
pnpm run check	Biome lint + TypeScript type check
pnpm run lint	Biome lint only
pnpm run lint:fix	Biome lint with auto-fix
pnpm run test	Run tests with vitest
pnpm run test:smoke	End-to-end smoke tests

Running locally

Propagate resources before first run:

node ./scripts/copy-resources.js --dev

Run the CLI directly via Bun:

pnpm run dev

Or build a standalone binary:

pnpm run build:binary
./dist/bin/kimchi

Project structure

src/
  entry.ts              -- Entry point
  cli.ts                -- CLI logic & harness initialization
  cli-args.ts           -- Argument parsing
  config.ts             -- Auth & config loading
  models.ts             -- Model metadata fetching & registration
  setup-wizard.ts       -- First-run wizard
  commands/             -- CLI subcommands (setup, login, config, update, ...)
  extensions/           -- Agent extensions
    agents/             -- Subagent system (personas, manager, memory)
    orchestration/      -- Task classification, model registry, delegation
    ferment/            -- Ferment lifecycle tools & UI
    mcp-adapter/        -- MCP server integration
    permissions/        -- Tool auth flows
    behaviours/         -- Contextual prompt behaviours
    web-fetch/          -- Web content fetching
    web-search/         -- Web search
    lsp/                -- Language Server Protocol
    login/              -- OAuth flows
    onboarding/         -- Session mode startup wizard
  ferment/              -- Ferment state machine, event store, stats
  modes/
    interactive/        -- TUI harness
    acp/                -- JSON-RPC over stdio (IDE integration)
    teleport/           -- Remote session multiplexing
  agent-discovery/      -- Detection & migration of other coding agents
  config/               -- Config loading & merging
  auth/                 -- API key management
  utils/                -- Shared helpers

Benchmarking

The benchmark/ directory contains tools for smoke-testing kimchi sessions and auditing their quality.

• Manual benchmarks (benchmark/manual/) -- run predefined tasks against different models and compare results. See benchmark/manual/README.md.
• Terminal-bench-2 (benchmark/terminal-bench-2/) -- run the terminal-bench suite (89 tasks) against kimchi inside Docker containers. See benchmark/terminal-bench-2/README.md.
• Session audit (benchmark/audit-session/) -- audit a completed session for phase discipline, code quality, architecture, testing, model alignment, and cost efficiency. See benchmark/audit-session/README.md.

Release

Standalone binaries are built automatically by GitHub Actions when a version tag is pushed (v*). Binaries are compiled with bun build --compile and require no runtime on the user's machine.

Supported platforms:

• macOS (amd64, arm64)
• Linux (amd64, arm64)

Release assets follow the naming convention kimchi_{os}_{arch}.tar.gz with a checksums.txt (SHA256) for verification.

License

Apache License 2.0 -- see CONTRIBUTING.md for the CLA and contributor guidelines.