maki

An AI coding agent optimized for minimal use of context tokens, while providing a great user experience.

Features

Context efficiency

• index tool - uses tree-sitter to parse supported programming languages to produce a high level skeleton of a file, with exact start-end lines of each item (e.g. a function's implementation is in lines 150-165). Encouraged to be used before reads. For my usage it adds 59 tok/turn but saves 224 tok/turn on read calls, saving 165 tok/turn.
• code_execution tool - uses monty to run an interpreter that has all other tools available as async functions. Maki uses it to filter / summarize / transform / pipe data to other tools as input, without it ever reaching and polluting the context window. Sandbox limited by time & memory.
• task tool - when delegating work to subagents, the AI chooses whether to run weak / medium / strong model of used provider. Think haiku / sonnet / opus.
• System prompt, tool descriptions, and tool examples are all concise, I've made sure not to bloat your context.
• Uses rtk if you have it installed, disable with maki.setup({ agent = { rtk = false } }) in your init.lua. Saves ~50% of bash output tokens. Remember bash is just 12% of total token usage, so 6% is nice, but saving on reads (65% of total) by using index gave me more benefit. I think I'll do bash output filtering like this myself in a future release.

User experience

• SUPER fast startup, 60 FPS, and light on memory. Not running any JavaScript, using ratatui for TUI. Even the splash screen animation uses SIMD.
• Extend with neovim like Lua plugins - Builtin plugins, User made plugins showcase, Lua API reference.
• Philosophy of not hiding anything - while other coding agents hide information as models improve (e.g. not showing number of lines read), maki leaves you in control.
• UI fits everything well on my small screen laptop.
• Full visibility of subagents - each subagent gets their own "chat window" you can easily navigate between using /tasks (Ctrl-X).
• Sensible permission system - when the agent runs git diff && rm -rf /, what do you think will happen in your current coding agent? It will treat it as git *. Maki uses tree-sitter to parse the bash command and figure out the permissions requested are git * and rm *. Disable using --yolo.
• SSRF protection on webfetch calls.
• A memory tool to keep long term context, just tell maki to remember something (sometimes it uses it automatically). Managed via /memory (view / edit / delete memories).
• Fuzzy search with Ctrl-F.
• /btw to run a command with the chat history without interfering with the current session.
• Rewind on Escape-Escape (no code rewind yet, only chat history).
• Attach images in prompts.
• 26 of the most popular themes.
• Resume sessions.
• Skills & MCPs.
• Opt-in OpenTelemetry export, same format as Claude Code's.
• Plan mode.
• Run bash commands using !, or !! if you want maki to not know about it.
• /cd to change dir.
• Use --print --output-format stream-json to run UI-less. Output is compatible with Claude Code, so you can easily replace your existing solutions.

Supported providers

• Anthropic - ANTHROPIC_API_KEY only (using OAuth is against TOS). Bedrock supported via CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1.
• OpenAI - OPENAI_API_KEY and OAuth via maki auth login openai.
• xAI - XAI_API_KEY and OAuth via maki auth login xai.
• Google - GEMINI_API_KEY.
• Copilot - GH_COPILOT_TOKEN or an existing GitHub Copilot sign-in at ~/.config/github-copilot/.
• Ollama - OLLAMA_HOST for local (e.g. http://localhost:11434), or OLLAMA_API_KEY for cloud.
• llama.cpp - LLAMA_CPP_HOST (e.g. http://localhost:8080), optionally LLAMA_CPP_API_KEY.
• Mistral - MISTRAL_API_KEY.
• Z.AI - ZHIPU_API_KEY.
• DeepSeek - DEEPSEEK_API_KEY.
• OpenRouter - OPENROUTER_API_KEY.
• Requesty - REQUESTY_API_KEY. Set REQUESTY_BASE_URL=https://router.eu.requesty.ai/v1 for the EU region.
• Synthetic - SYNTHETIC_API_KEY.
• Regolo - REGOLO_API_KEY. EU-hosted open-weight models.
• TensorX - TENSORX_API_KEY.
• OpenCode Zen - OPENCODE_API_KEY, or the free public key for zero-cost models. Models from the models.dev catalog.
• OpenCode Go - OPENCODE_API_KEY. Models from the models.dev catalog.
• Aperture - APERTURE_HOST (e.g. https://your-host.tailnet.ts.net). No API key needed, Tailscale handles auth.

Dynamic providers - drop an executable script into ~/.config/maki/providers/ to add custom providers or proxies. See docs for details.

Installation

Linux / macOS

# Download and read the script first (don't blindly trust shell scripts).
curl -fsSL https://maki.sh/install.sh -o install.sh
cat install.sh

# Then run.
chmod +x install.sh && sh install.sh

One-liner:

curl -fsSL https://maki.sh/install.sh | sh

Installs to ~/.local/bin. Override with MAKI_INSTALL_DIR.

Windows (PowerShell)

# Download and read the script first (don't blindly trust remote scripts).
irm https://maki.sh/install.ps1 -OutFile install.ps1
Get-Content install.ps1

# Then run.
.\install.ps1

One-liner:

irm https://maki.sh/install.ps1 | iex

Windows (Git Bash)

curl -fsSL https://maki.sh/install.sh | sh

Both install to %LOCALAPPDATA%\maki and add it to your user PATH. Override with MAKI_INSTALL_DIR / $env:MAKI_INSTALL_DIR.

Living on the edge (main branch)

cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/tontinton/maki.git maki

With Nix

nix run github:tontinton/maki

Or download a pre-built binary from GitHub Releases.

ACP

Run maki acp or configure your ACP supporting editor to use maki, e.g. in Zed's settings.json:

"agent_servers": {
  "Maki": {
    "default_config_options": {
      "model": "deepseek/deepseek-flash"
    },
    "type": "custom",
    "command": "maki",
    "args": ["acp"],
    "env": {}
  }
}

Documentation

More info at the official docs.

Community

Example config

tontinton/makiconf - includes a semble tool (Lua code) for semantic code search, and an ast-grep MCP server for AST-based search and replace.

DISCLAIMER: >90% of code in maki was written by maki, guided by humans. Some parts of the code are not as good as what I would've made in the artisanal hand-made style. But it's also not slop / vibe coded, and can easily be refactored if needed nowadays.