Cline: An Autonomous Coding Agent as SDK, CLI, or IDE

TL;DR: cline/cline is an Apache-2.0 autonomous coding agent that ships as an SDK, a CLI assistant, and an IDE extension. TypeScript codebase, 68,393 stars, the long-running open alternative to closed coding agents.

What it is

cline/cline describes itself as “Autonomous coding agent as an SDK, IDE extension, or CLI assistant.” The repo lives under the cline GitHub organisation, the language is TypeScript, the license is Apache-2.0, and the repository has 68,393 stars and 7,387 forks. It is not archived.

The homepage is https://cline.bot, which is the user-facing surface for the agent, separate from the open-source code in the repository.

What it does well

Most coding agents lock you into a single interface — IDE plugin or CLI, hosted or local. Cline explicitly publishes three.

• SDK. Embed the agent loop inside your own product, the same way you would a payment SDK. Useful for teams building coding-adjacent products.
• CLI assistant. Drive the agent from a terminal, similar to the Claude Code or Codex CLI workflows.
• IDE extension. Install the agent inside VS Code or a compatible editor for the traditional in-editor experience.
• Apache-2.0. The license is permissive enough to ship the agent inside commercial products, which is not true for every coding-agent codebase.

How to try it

For the CLI/SDK path:

git clone https://github.com/cline/cline.git
cd cline
npm install
npm run build

For the IDE extension, the marketplace listing at https://cline.bot is the canonical install path. The SDK is importable as a TypeScript package once the local build is in place.

When it fits, and when it doesn’t

Cline fits teams who want an Apache-2.0 coding agent that can be embedded into their own product, not just used as a standalone tool. It is less attractive if you are happy with a hosted-only coding agent and do not need the SDK surface, or if your stack is not TypeScript.

68k stars and a homepage that sits separately from the repo suggest the project is being treated as a product as well as an open-source library, which is a useful stability signal.

Source and Accuracy Notes

• Project page: https://github.com/cline/cline
• Source repository: cline/cline (verified via GitHub API html_url)
• License: Apache-2.0 (verified via GitHub API license.spdx_id)
• Stars at time of writing: 68,393
• Language: TypeScript
• Homepage: https://cline.bot