opencode

The OpenCode GitHub repository is the open-source coding agent for people who live in the terminal — and, past 222,000 stars, the community’s flagship alternative to proprietary coding agents. You type a task; OpenCode reads your codebase, edits files, runs commands and tests, and iterates until the job is done. Its defining choice is neutrality: where some rivals are tied to one model vendor or one subscribed IDE, OpenCode is model-agnostic — bring keys from more than 75 providers, or run local models on your own machine. The OpenCode GitHub project, maintained by the team behind SST (now Anomaly), bets that when the best coding model changes every few months, you should switch a config line, not your tool. The official home of the project is the anomalyco/opencode repository on GitHub, where you can browse the source code, releases and issue tracker.

What it is

OpenCode is a terminal-first agent with a full interactive TUI, written in TypeScript and released under the MIT licence; a desktop application for macOS, Windows and Linux is in beta alongside it. Two agents are built in, switched with the Tab key: Build, the default full-access agent for development work, and Plan, a read-only agent that denies file edits by default and asks permission before running shell commands — a genuinely useful separation when you want analysis without consequences. A general subagent handles complex searches and multi-step tasks. Providers plug in through the Vercel AI SDK and the Models.dev registry; credentials are added with /connect, models switched mid-session with /models, and defaults set in an opencode.json config file.

Key features

• Build and Plan agents — full-access development and read-only analysis as separate modes, one keystroke apart.
• 75+ model providers — hosted APIs preloaded via Models.dev; add your keys once with /connect.
• Local models — Ollama, llama.cpp, LM Studio and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint for private or offline work.
• Model switching on the fly — /models changes the brain mid-session without losing the thread of the task.
• Everywhere installation — one-line installs via curl, npm, Homebrew, Pacman, mise or Nix, across all three desktop platforms.
• Open source under MIT — the agent itself is yours to audit, fork and self-host, unlike subscription tools.

Who it is for

Development teams and technical founders weighing open tooling against subscription agents and editors — especially those who want provider choice, predictable cost and no editor lock-in. It suits terminal-centric workflows and multi-model strategies: a premium model for architecture, a cheaper one for grunt work, a local model for sensitive code. Agencies evaluating per-seat costs across a growing team will find the maths easy to like. It is a weaker fit for developers who want a polished graphical IDE experience today — the desktop app is still beta — or for teams that prefer a single vendor accountable for the whole stack.

Getting started

Install OpenCode with the one-liner for your platform from the OpenCode GitHub README, run /connect to attach a provider, and start in Plan mode on a real codebase question — watch it analyse without touching a file. Then switch to Build for a small, well-scoped task and review the diff the way you would review a junior’s pull request. Set your defaults in opencode.json early (a model per agent, sensible permissions), because that config file is what turns a promising demo into a team standard. Keep your existing editor; OpenCode is editor-independent by design.

Our take

OpenCode’s neutrality is the correct long-term position, and its pace of development is relentless — commits land constantly, and the feature gap with proprietary rivals keeps narrowing. The honest trade-offs: an open tool means assembling your own support story; provider quality varies, so the agent is only as good as the model you point it at; and the TUI, while excellent, asks more of newcomers than a glossy IDE does. None of that dents the core value for teams who can self-support. We compared it against the paid field in our MTD blog analysis — read our full deep-dive — including the real cost picture. If you are standardising on one agent this year, the OpenCode GitHub repository is the open option to beat.