Ships code. Lands vulns.
No key required.

clai is a free, open-source AI coding agent and authorized pentesting CLI for the terminal. It runs keyless by default, edits files with reviewable diffs, runs commands and tests, and can run scoped security engagements across 38 providers. Use it as a coding agent, a pentesting assistant, or both in the same session — a free coding agent and pentesting CLI in one terminal.

Yes. A fresh install runs keyless on the built-in Free provider — no account, no API key, no config. From there you can add account sign-ins, free-tier API keys, gateways, or a local Ollama model, and clai rotates through your keys when one hits a rate limit so capacity stacks into one uninterrupted session. Paid providers are optional, and free-only mode keeps them out of the fallback chain.

No. The default Free provider is keyless. When you want more capacity, sign in with an account provider or add a key with clai set <provider> — up to 10 keys per provider, rotated automatically. Inside a session, /set manages the same credentials.

38 provider integrations in total, including 7 account sign-ins — ChatGPT (Codex), GitHub Copilot, Cline, Kiro, OmniRush, Qoder, and Freebuff — plus the keyless Free provider, local Ollama, direct APIs such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, Mistral, GLM, Kimi, MiniMax, MiMo, NVIDIA NIM, and Qwen Cloud, and gateways including AgentRouter, AWS Mantle, Fireworks, Lightning AI, Modal, TokenRouter, and Vercel AI Gateway.

Store up to 10 keys or signed-in accounts per provider. On a rate limit, clai honours the provider's Retry-After hint, retries, then moves to the next key; auth and quota errors switch keys immediately. The key that last worked is tried first next time. Optional cross-provider fallback (/fallback on) covers outages, and /freeonly keeps paid providers out of that chain.

Three things. It is free-tier first: multi-key rotation and optional cross-provider fallback keep it alive across rate limits instead of stopping. It is honest: it edits files with reviewable diffs, typechecks and runs builds before claiming done, and never reports success without evidence. And it is session-native: persistent sessions, durable plans, background jobs, subagents, Agent Skills, and MCP servers in one terminal agent.

clai assists with authorized security testing: reconnaissance, enumeration, scoped testing, and structured reporting using installed tools. You acknowledge authorization once with clai authorize-pentest AGREE, then configure scope — authorized targets, exclusions, phases, and limits — with clai scope or /scope. Only test systems you own or have explicit permission to assess.

Every action passes through the permission policy you configure. Ask mode is read-only; agent mode executes under your chosen policy; plan mode gathers evidence before anything runs. Ctrl+O reveals a full pending operation before you approve it. Under auto-allow, deletions outside the active folder or with a target clai cannot verify still ask first, and default mode confirms every deletion. These controls govern clai's own tools — they are not an OS sandbox.

Run /minimise to detach while the agent keeps working, then reattach from another terminal or over SSH — several terminals can share one live session. clai --resume reopens the latest live or saved session, clai -c prefers the current directory, and clai history lists sessions and whether an agent is still running.

Yes. Point clai at Ollama for fully local, offline use, bring a custom endpoint, or drive a hosted open-weight model through a gateway such as Modal or Lightning AI. Account, API-key, gateway, and local providers all sit in the same provider and model pickers.

macOS, Linux, and Windows on x64 and ARM64. OpenTUI is the default interface on macOS and Linux; Windows and small terminals use the Classic interface, which you can force with clai --classic. Recommended terminals are iTerm2, Kitty, WezTerm, Alacritty, and Windows Terminal. Native binaries bundle the runtime; only the npm package needs Node.js 22 or newer.

Yes — MIT licensed, built by Aniket Pandey (pentoshi007). Source, issues, and installers live on GitHub; the package ships on npm as @pentoshi/clai, plus Homebrew and a self-updating native installer. The current release is v5.1.2.