VT Code: Open-Source Rust TUI Coding Agent with Multi-Provider Support and Agent Skills

VT Code is an open-source terminal-based AI coding agent built in Rust (using Ratatui for the TUI). It supports multiple LLM providers including Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, and Codex, as well as any open-source model via local inference through LM Studio and Ollama (experimental). The agent is Agent Skills, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and Agent Client Protocol (ACP) ready.

Key Features

• Multi-provider LLM support with automatic failover and efficient context management.
• Semantic code understanding powered by ast-grep for structured code search and ripgrep for fast grep operations.
• Agent Skills following the open Agent Skills standard, enabling external capability extension through a standardized skill system.
• Shell safety via process hardening (vtcode-process-hardening) and bash runner (vtcode-bash-runner).
• Terminal detection and PTY integration (vtcode-terminal-detection, vtcode-ghostty-vt-sys) for richer screen snapshots.
• Extensions for VSCode and Zed are included in the repo.

Installation

Native Installer (macOS/Linux):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vinhnx/vtcode/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
# Skip ripgrep + ast-grep bundle:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vinhnx/vtcode/main/scripts/install.sh | bash -s -- --without-search-tools

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vinhnx/vtcode/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

Via Cargo:

cargo install vtcode

Via Homebrew:

brew install vtcode  # from homebrew/core
# or from vinhnx/tap (development):
brew tap vinhnx/tap
brew install vtcode

Usage

Set your API key and launch:

export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."
vtcode

To install the optional search tools bundle (ripgrep + ast-grep) after initial installation:

vtcode dependencies install search-tools

Architecture

The project is organized into many Rust crates (e.g., vtcode-core, vtcode-llm, vtcode-tui, vtcode-tools) and includes a collaborative tool spec system, markdown store, config, and exec events. The agent loop is documented in the README and DeepWiki.

For development, see the GitHub repo for setup scripts (scripts/setup-ghostty-vt-dev.sh, etc.) and the Homebrew tap for bleeding-edge builds.