Cline - AI Code Assistants Tool

Overview

Cline is an agentic coding assistant that runs as a VS Code extension and CLI tool, designed to perform multi-step development tasks under human supervision. It can read large codebases (ASTs and regex searches), create and edit files with syntax-highlighted diff previews, execute terminal commands and monitor output, and drive a headless browser to capture screenshots and console logs for interactive debugging. According to the project README, Cline keeps a human-in-the-loop workflow—presenting diffs and permission buttons before performing file writes or CLI commands—while providing checkpoints so you can compare or restore workspace snapshots. ([github.com](https://github.com/cline/cline)) Beyond local editing and execution, Cline is extensible via the Model Context Protocol (MCP): you can add or install MCP servers to expose external APIs and services (OAuth/APIs, remote data, infrastructure controls) to the agent. The official docs describe MCP transport options (STDIO and Server-Sent Events) and a development protocol for building MCP servers. Cline supports many model providers (OpenRouter, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, AWS Bedrock, Azure, GCP Vertex, Ollama/LM Studio, Groq, Cerebras) and tracks token usage and per-request costs for task loops. The repository shows active development with frequent releases and broad community engagement. ([docs.cline.bot](https://docs.cline.bot/mcp/mcp-overview?utm_source=openai))

GitHub Statistics

• Stars: 56,948
• Forks: 5,612
• Contributors: 261
• License: Apache-2.0
• Primary Language: TypeScript
• Last Updated: 2026-01-17T18:05:01Z
• Latest Release: v3.51.0

The cline/cline repository is highly active and widely used: the main repo shows ~56.9k stars and ~5.6k forks, with thousands of commits and hundreds of releases (latest release v3.51.0 listed Jan 15, 2026). The codebase is predominantly TypeScript (≈86%) with Go and JavaScript components, and contributions come from a large group of maintainers (hundreds of contributors). ([github.com](https://github.com/cline/cline)) Community signals show fast iteration and lively issue discussion: there are many open and recently filed issues and PRs covering terminal parsing, checkpoint reliability, MCP auth (OAuth) support requests, and UI state/auto-approve behavior—evidence of both frequent real-world usage and emergent edge cases users report. Representative issues include task-history/checkpoint corruption, terminal parsing bugs, and MCP OAuth questions. These indicate active user feedback and an engineering cadence that triages platform, UX, and security concerns. ([github.com](https://github.com/cline/cline/issues/4388?utm_source=openai)) Overall, the project is mature and fast-moving, but prospective users—especially on critical codebases or enterprise deployments—should review open issues and test Cline in a sandboxed workflow first. The README and docs provide local development and MCP guidance, and an enterprise offering is mentioned for SSO, private networking, and on-prem options (details and pricing are not published in the repo). ([github.com](https://github.com/cline/cline))

Installation

Install via npm:

git clone https://github.com/cline/cline.git

cd cline && npm run install:all

Open the project in VS Code and press F5 to run the extension (local dev) or install the released VSIX from the Visual Studio Marketplace

Key Features

• Create and edit files with syntax-highlighted diffs and timeline tracking for easy review and rollback.
• Execute terminal commands in your IDE and stream terminal output to the task chat, with 'Proceed While Running' support.
• Drive a headless browser: click, type, scroll, take screenshots, and capture console logs for debugging and E2E checks.
• Extend Cline via the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to add custom tools that access APIs or control infrastructure.
• Track tokens and API costs per task and request; choose from many model providers or local models for cost/latency trade-offs.

Use Cases

• Automated cross-file refactors with previewed diffs and checkpointed workspace snapshots.
• Reproduce and fix frontend runtime/visual bugs by launching dev server and driving a headless browser.
• Run tests, install packages, or deploy via terminal execution while supervising commands and outputs.

Key Information

• Category: Code Assistants
• Type: AI Code Assistants Tool