Product

Introducing the Warp Agent CLI: a CLI coding agent that does what others can't

Zach Lloyd
Introducing the Warp Agent CLI: a CLI coding agent that does what others can't

Highlights:

  • The Warp Agent is now available as a standalone CLI that you can use anywhere – Ghostty, iTerm 2, VS Code, built-in Windows and Mac Terminals – and provides a superior experience for developers who do heavy terminal workflows
  • The agent itself has built-in model-routing capabilities, comes with frontier and US-hosted open-weight models built in, and can even be customized with custom model routers.
  • The CLI has native support for advanced agent workflows, like multi-agent orchestration and cloud agents.
  • The CLI is built on Warp’s terminal infrastructure, which allows it to mux agent sessions natively – this unlocks capabilities beyond what is possible in other agents.

Today we are excited to launch the Warp Agent CLI, a new standalone CLI that lets you use the Warp Agent anywhere. It’s the same multi-model agent that’s built into Warp Terminal, now available in Ghostty, iTerm 2, VSCode, the built-in Windows terminal, or whatever terminal you prefer.

The Warp Agent CLI has everything you’d expect from a modern CLI coding agent: it’s a multi-model, cost-optimizing harness built for pro developers. Out of the box, you get access to frontier and open-weight models and auto-routing based on task complexity.

The CLI was truly built to fix gaps we were seeing with other agentic CLIs related to how well they integrate with the shell itself— especially important for developers doing real work in the terminal.

Technically, we accomplished this by building the CLI agent on top of Warp’s unique terminal infrastructure: think of our CLI agent as a built-in mux’er across agent sessions. This allows more natural interactions, like being able to switch directories in agent sessions, have the agent drive full-screen terminal commands (e.g. sqlite and mysql), and even run across ssh sessions with no remote binary install.

Let’s dive into the features that make the Warp Agent CLI extremely useful for folks who live in the terminal.

A multiplexing terminal agent

The Warp Agent CLI has a unique mux’ing architecture. Within an agent session, we are actually running and managing pty connections with a layer of indirection between the agent and the underlying shell, a similar architecture to how tmux works. The mux’ing is managed by Warp’s terminal infrastructure, so our agent is natively aware of terminal inputs and output (what we call “blocks” in Warp). This allows for a richer experience than any other CLI agent. Here are some of the features it unlocks.

Persistent sessions and remote agents

The Warp Agent CLI lets you switch directories while in an agent session, and even run agents on remote machines without installing remote binaries. This is all because the agent session continues even when the base “state” of the session changes.

Changing directories in an agent session.

Persistent sessions are useful when you are working across multi-repo projects, or when you want agent assistance on cloud machines where you might have limited permissions to install software.

Agent-driven full-screen and interactive apps

You can run full-screen and interactive terminal apps like sqlite and python through the agent session. Warp Agent can also control those apps. So within a REPL you can ask our agent to write queries or interactively debug code. Or you can ask the agent to quit vim…

Agent editing document using vim
Agent editing document using vim

For example, you can ask the Warp Agent to:

  • Generate SQL queries within a REPL and interactively debug data issues
  • Use a debugger like gdb to set breakpoints and debug running apps
  • Monitor system performance with htop

Seamless terminal input: autodetection and tab-completion

As with other CLI agents, you can use `!` to run a shell command. But Warp CLI also supports natural language detection: we ship with a classifier that automatically distinguishes shell commands from prompts, and invokes either the shell or agent accordingly.

Command completion menu
Command completion menu in Warp

The Warp Agent CLI has one of Warp Terminal’s flagship features: tab completions. Start typing a command, hit tab, and see suggestions for arguments and flags.

Great UI for advanced agent workflows

The Warp Agent CLI is built for the age of autonomous development, not just manually prompting agents. As such, it has full support for running cloud agents and orchestrating multi-agent workflows.

Unique to Warp, when you couple the Warp Agent with our cloud platform, our harness can delegate not just across subagents with different models, but with entirely different harnesses like Claude Code and Codex.

Choosing with agent harness to use for a cloud agent
Choosing with agent harness to use for a cloud agent

Automatic agent orchestration

Warp’s agent is an orchestration agent. It delegates to subagents to break apart hard tasks, with a native interface that makes it easy to see what each orchestrated agent is doing. You can even use arrow keys to switch between subagent and orchestrator agent sessions.

Warp managing subagents
Warp managing subagents with orchestration

Cloud agent handoff

Start work in the CLI, then hand it off to the cloud when you want to close your laptop. All cloud agents are tracked centrally and can be monitored and steered via the web so you can continue work on the go.

Cloud agent handoff menu
Cloud agent handoff via slash command

Cost-optimizing and customizable harness

Warp Agent is a pareto-efficient harness with auto-routing based on task complexity. Out of the box, it comes with access to frontier models and open-weight models.

We also have invested more to make open weight models great within our harness, with first class support for custom model routers where you define which models handle which tasks.

Custom router configuration with a yaml file
Custom router configuration file

How to get started

Install the CLI

Mac / Linux (Terminal):

Bash
curl -fsSL https://app.warp.dev/download/agent-cli | bash

Windows (PowerShell):

Invoke-RestMethod "https://app.warp.dev/download/agent-cli.ps1" | Invoke-Expression

Configure inference

Once you’ve installed the CLI, you have three ways to get started:

  • Purchase a subscription to Warp, starting at $18 a month for $20 of inference / month. If you have an existing Warp subscription, you’ll be able to login and get started immediately.
  • Purchase ad hoc credits, now available without a monthly subscription, starting at $10.
  • Add an API key, an OpenAI compatible endpoint, or log in with your SuperGrok subscription.

Give it a try today and let us know what you think!

Start your software factory

Book a demo and we’ll walk you through the workflows that map to your stack.