continue - AI Code Assistants Tool

Overview

Continue is an open-source, developer-first AI agent platform that combines a terminal-native CLI (cn), optional IDE extensions, and a cloud “Mission Control” GUI to automate common engineering workflows. It ships as a modular CLI that runs in TUI (interactive) or headless (CI/automation) modes, and as IDE plugins for VS Code and JetBrains so agents can be invoked from the editor or run as background automations. ([github.com](https://github.com/continuedev/continue)) The project focuses on agentic workflows: you build agents from prompts, rules, and MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools to do multi-step tasks such as opening PRs, triaging issues, fixing dependency vulnerabilities, generating documentation, or running repo-wide refactors. Continue supports “bring-your-own” models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Ollama/local models and others) and offers a Hub of reusable agents, prompts, rules, and MCP integrations for services like GitHub, Sentry, Snyk and Linear. The product also provides hosted Mission Control features (Solo/Team/Enterprise tiers) for team governance and optional managed model access. ([docs.continue.dev](https://docs.continue.dev/hub/agents/overview?utm_source=openai))

GitHub Statistics

  • Stars: 30,772
  • Forks: 4,013
  • Contributors: 398
  • License: Apache-2.0
  • Primary Language: TypeScript
  • Last Updated: 2026-01-09T00:20:08Z
  • Latest Release: v1.5.29

The repository is highly active and widely adopted: the main GitHub repo shows roughly 30.8k stars and ~4k forks, and is released under the Apache-2.0 license. CI and GitHub Actions activity is heavy (tens of thousands of workflow runs), and the project maintains frequent releases and a public changelog. These signals indicate an active core team and ongoing feature development. ([github.com](https://github.com/continuedev/continue)) Community involvement is strong — the project has several hundred contributors (community metrics report contributors in the high hundreds across mirrors/aggregators) and an active Hub of published agents and configs. There is also a public Discord and GitHub Discussions for support and contributions. The codebase receives regular pull requests and issue reports; users report both fast feature rollouts and some recurring IDE/plugin stability issues tracked in GitHub Issues. (Last-commit metadata provided: 2026-01-09T00:20:08Z.) ([commits.ecosyste.ms](https://commits.ecosyste.ms/hosts/GitHub/repositories/continuedev/continue?utm_source=openai))

Installation

Install via npm:

npm i -g @continuedev/cli
cn
cn login
export CONTINUE_API_KEY=your_key_here  # (optional for headless CI usage)

Key Features

  • Terminal-first CLI with TUI and headless modes for interactive and automated workflows.
  • Mission Control GUI to launch, monitor, and govern background agents and workflows.
  • Agents: multi-step workflows built from prompts, rules, and MCP tools for repeatable tasks.
  • IDE extensions (VS Code, JetBrains) for inline chat, edits, and agent-driven refactors.
  • Multi-model support and BYO models/APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Ollama/local runtimes).
  • Hub of reusable blocks: prompts, rules, MCP connectors, and published agents for reuse.
  • CI/CD and scheduler integration: run agents in GitHub Actions, Jenkins, cron, or pipelines.
  • Governance features (Solo/Team/Enterprise) including allow/block lists and managed secrets.

Community

Continue has a sizable, active community with hundreds of contributors, a public Discord, GitHub Discussions, and an extensible Hub for sharing agents and rules. The project shows high repository activity (frequent releases, many workflow runs) and regular community contributions, but users also file issues around IDE plugin stability and platform edge-cases (several open/closed GitHub issues reference VS Code and JetBrains integration bugs). For governance and hosted features, Continue offers Solo/Team/Enterprise plans via Mission Control. Overall, community health is strong — rapid feature development and an engaged contributor base — balanced by ongoing work to harden IDE integrations. ([github.com](https://github.com/continuedev/continue))

Last Refreshed: 2026-01-09

Key Information

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