cli-agents

Build agentic apps on top of your users' existing AI subscriptions.

Instead of requiring API keys or managing token costs, cli-agents spawns the AI CLI tools users already have installed — Claude Code, Codex, or Gemini CLI — and provides a unified Rust interface for streaming events, tool calls, cancellation, and structured results. Your app brings the UX; the user brings their own subscription.

Key features

• Single API — run() works with any supported CLI backend
• Auto-discovery — finds installed CLIs in PATH, nvm, homebrew, and common install locations
• Streaming events — unified StreamEvent enum for text, thinking, tool calls, errors, and completion across all providers
• Timeouts & guardrails — idle timeout, total timeout, and consecutive tool-failure limits with automatic cancellation
• MCP support — configure Model Context Protocol servers for all adapters
• Async / Tokio — fully async with cancellation via CancellationToken

Quick example

use cli_agents::{run, RunOptions, StreamEvent, CliName};
use std::sync::Arc;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    let opts = RunOptions {
        cli: Some(CliName::Claude),
        task: "List all public functions in src/lib.rs".into(),
        cwd: Some("./my-project".into()),
        skip_permissions: true,
        ..Default::default()
    };

    let handle = run(opts, Some(Arc::new(|event: StreamEvent| {
        match &event {
            StreamEvent::TextDelta { text } => print!("{text}"),
            StreamEvent::Done { result } => println!("\nDone: {:?}", result.success),
            _ => {}
        }
    })));

    let result = handle.result.await.unwrap().unwrap();
    println!("Success: {}", result.success);
}

Why cli-agents?

AI APIs require API keys and charge per token. Most developers already pay for Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus, or Gemini — and those subscriptions come with CLI tools. cli-agents lets you build desktop apps, dev tools, and automation that run on the user's existing subscription with zero API cost to you.

This is especially powerful for Tauri desktop apps: your Rust backend spawns the agent, streams events to the frontend, and the user's own subscription handles the AI — no API keys to configure, no billing to manage.

Platform support