Cline

Cline is an AI coding agent that runs inside your IDE, specifically as a VS Code extension. It is built for developers who need help with multi-step software tasks such as understanding an existing codebase, making edits, running tests, and checking web apps in a browser.

According to the README, Cline can work with files, terminal commands, and browser interactions, and it keeps the user in the loop before taking actions. It also supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to extend what it can do. Setup starts by installing it from the VS Marketplace and connecting a model/API provider; it supports Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, AWS Bedrock, Azure, GCP Vertex, Groq, Cerebras, OpenRouter, OpenAI-compatible APIs, and local models through LM Studio or Ollama.

Cline is more agentic than a standard autocomplete tool, but it is not hands-off automation. The workflow is intentionally human-in-the-loop: you approve file changes and terminal commands step by step, which makes it safer but less suitable if you want a fully autonomous agent. It appears strongest for coding, debugging, and test-driven iteration inside an active development environment.

The project is open source on GitHub. The README says it tracks token usage and API cost, but pricing for the extension itself is not clearly described in the crawled content. Privacy, hosting, and data-retention details are also not fully clear from the provided page, so if those matter to you, you should check the documentation before using it in sensitive environments.