Project Roadmap/Goals

The current priorities are to improve core capabilities and user experience of the Aider project

1. Base Asynchronicity (aider-ce coroutine-experiment branch)

• Refactor codebase to have the main loop run asynchronously
• Update test harness to work with new asynchronous methods

2. Repo Map Accuracy - Discussion

• Bias page ranking toward active/editable files in repo map parsing
• Include AST information in repo map for richer context
• Handle non-unique symbols that break down in large codebases

3. Context Discovery - Discussion

• Develop AST-based search capabilities
• Enhance file search with ripgrep integration
• Implement RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) for better code retrieval
• Build an explicit workflow and local tooling for internal discovery mechanisms

4. Context Delivery - Discussion

• Use workflow for internal discovery to better target file snippets needed for specific tasks
• Add support for partial files and code snippets in model completion messages

5. TUI Experience - Discussion

• Add a full TUI (probably using textual) to have a visual interface competitive with the other coding agent terminal programs
• Re-integrate pretty output formatting
• Implement a response area, a prompt area with current auto completion capabilities, and a helper area for management utility commands

6. Agent Mode - Discussion

• Renaming "navigator mode" to "agent mode" for simplicity
• Add an explicit "finished" internal tool
• Add a configuration json setting for agent mode to specify allowed local tools to use, tool call limits, etc.
• Add a RAG tool for the model to ask questions about the codebase
• Make the system prompts more aggressive about removing unneeded files/content from the context
• Add a plugin-like system for allowing agent mode to use user-defined tools in simple python files
• Add a dynamic tool discovery tool to allow the system to have only the tools it needs in context

Fork Additions

This project aims to be compatible with upstream Aider, but with priority commits merged in and with some opportunistic bug fixes and optimizations

Merged PRs

• MCP: #3937
  • MCP Multi Tool Response
• Navigator Mode: #3781
  • Navigator Mode Large File Count
  • Fix navigator mode auto commit
• Qwen 3: #4383
• Fuzzy Search: #4366
• Map Cache Location Config: #2911
• Enhanced System Prompts: #3804
• Repo Map File Name Truncation Fix: #4320
• Read Only Stub Files For Context Window Management : #3056

Other Updates

• Added Remote MCP Tool Calls With HTTP Streaming
  • Enforce single tool call at a time
  • Upgraded MCP dep to 1.12.3 for Remote MCP Tool Calls
  • Updated base Python version to 3.12 to better support navigator mode (might consider undoing this, if dependency list supports it)
• Suppress LiteLLM asyncio errors that clutter output
• Updated Docker File Build Process
  • Manually install necessary ubuntu dependencies
• .gitignore updates
• Experimental Context Compaction For Longer Running Generation Tasks
• Edit Before Adding Files and Reflecting
• Fix Deepseek model configurations
• Relax Version Pinning For Easier Distribution
• Remove Confirm Responses from History
• Benchmark Results By Language
• Allow Benchmarks to Use Repo Map For Better Accuracy
• Read File Globbing

Documentation and Other Notes

• Agent Mode
• MCP Configuration
• Session Management

Installation Instructions

This project can be installed using several methods:

Package Installation

pip install aider-ce

or

uv pip install aider-ce

The package exports an aider-ce command that accepts all of Aider's configuration options

Tool Installation

uv tool install --python python3.12 aider-ce

Use the tool installation so aider doesn't interfere with your development environment

All Contributors (Both Aider Main and Aider-CE)

AI Pair Programming in Your Terminal

Aider lets you pair program with LLMs to start a new project or build on your existing codebase.

Features

Cloud and local LLMs

Aider works best with Claude 3.7 Sonnet, DeepSeek R1 & Chat V3, OpenAI o1, o3-mini & GPT-4o, but can connect to almost any LLM, including local models.

Maps your codebase

Aider makes a map of your entire codebase, which helps it work well in larger projects.

100+ code languages

Aider works with most popular programming languages: python, javascript, rust, ruby, go, cpp, php, html, css, and dozens more.

Git integration

Aider automatically commits changes with sensible commit messages. Use familiar git tools to easily diff, manage and undo AI changes.

Use in your IDE

Use aider from within your favorite IDE or editor. Ask for changes by adding comments to your code and aider will get to work.

Images & web pages

Add images and web pages to the chat to provide visual context, screenshots, reference docs, etc.

Voice-to-code

Speak with aider about your code! Request new features, test cases or bug fixes using your voice and let aider implement the changes.

Linting & testing

Automatically lint and test your code every time aider makes changes. Aider can fix problems detected by your linters and test suites.

Copy/paste to web chat

Work with any LLM via its web chat interface. Aider streamlines copy/pasting code context and edits back and forth with a browser.

Getting Started

python -m pip install aider-install
aider-install

# Change directory into your codebase
cd /to/your/project

# DeepSeek
aider --model deepseek --api-key deepseek=<key>

# Claude 3.7 Sonnet
aider --model sonnet --api-key anthropic=<key>

# o3-mini
aider --model o3-mini --api-key openai=<key>

See the installation instructions and usage documentation for more details.

More Information

Documentation

• Installation Guide
• Usage Guide
• Tutorial Videos
• Connecting to LLMs
• Configuration Options
• Troubleshooting
• FAQ

Community & Resources

• LLM Leaderboards
• GitHub Repository
• Discord Community
• Release notes
• Blog

Kind Words From Users

• "My life has changed... Aider... It's going to rock your world." — Eric S. Raymond on X
• "The best free open source AI coding assistant." — IndyDevDan on YouTube
• "The best AI coding assistant so far." — Matthew Berman on YouTube
• "Aider ... has easily quadrupled my coding productivity." — SOLAR_FIELDS on Hacker News
• "It's a cool workflow... Aider's ergonomics are perfect for me." — qup on Hacker News
• "It's really like having your senior developer live right in your Git repo - truly amazing!" — rappster on GitHub
• "What an amazing tool. It's incredible." — valyagolev on GitHub
• "Aider is such an astounding thing!" — cgrothaus on GitHub
• "It was WAY faster than I would be getting off the ground and making the first few working versions." — Daniel Feldman on X
• "THANK YOU for Aider! It really feels like a glimpse into the future of coding." — derwiki on Hacker News
• "It's just amazing. It is freeing me to do things I felt were out my comfort zone before." — Dougie on Discord
• "This project is stellar." — funkytaco on GitHub
• "Amazing project, definitely the best AI coding assistant I've used." — joshuavial on GitHub
• "I absolutely love using Aider ... It makes software development feel so much lighter as an experience." — principalideal0 on Discord
• "I have been recovering from ... surgeries ... aider ... has allowed me to continue productivity." — codeninja on Reddit
• "I am an aider addict. I'm getting so much more work done, but in less time." — dandandan on Discord
• "Aider... blows everything else out of the water hands down, there's no competition whatsoever." — SystemSculpt on Discord
• "Aider is amazing, coupled with Sonnet 3.5 it's quite mind blowing." — Josh Dingus on Discord
• "Hands down, this is the best AI coding assistant tool so far." — IndyDevDan on YouTube
• "[Aider] changed my daily coding workflows. It's mind-blowing how ...(it)... can change your life." — maledorak on Discord
• "Best agent for actual dev work in existing codebases." — Nick Dobos on X
• "One of my favorite pieces of software. Blazing trails on new paradigms!" — Chris Wall on X
• "Aider has been revolutionary for me and my work." — Starry Hope on X
• "Try aider! One of the best ways to vibe code." — Chris Wall on X
• "Freaking love Aider." — hztar on Hacker News
• "Aider is hands down the best. And it's free and opensource." — AriyaSavakaLurker on Reddit
• "Aider is also my best friend." — jzn21 on Reddit
• "Try Aider, it's worth it." — jorgejhms on Reddit
• "I like aider :)" — Chenwei Cui on X
• "Aider is the precision tool of LLM code gen... Minimal, thoughtful and capable of surgical changes ... while keeping the developer in control." — Reilly Sweetland on X
• "Cannot believe aider vibe coded a 650 LOC feature across service and cli today in 1 shot." - autopoietist on Discord
• "Oh no the secret is out! Yes, Aider is the best coding tool around. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone." — Joshua D Vander Hook on X
• "thanks to aider, i have started and finished three personal projects within the last two days" — joseph stalzyn on X
• "Been using aider as my daily driver for over a year ... I absolutely love the tool, like beyond words." — koleok on Discord
• "Aider ... is the tool to benchmark against." — BeetleB on Hacker News
• "aider is really cool" — kache on X