cheetahclaws

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Quick Install

pip install cheetahclaws

Then just run (e.g., using deepseek-v4-flash model):

cheetahclaws        # start chatting!

Other install methods: one-line install script | install from source | uv install | run from source install | full install details | docker install

️ Prefer a native app? A desktop build (Electron) wraps the full chat UI in a window — no terminal needed. See desktop/.

News (Pacific Time)

• August 16, 2026 (v3.5.87): Permission prompts are now reserved for what actually needs a decision. auto mode asks only when an action can change your files, run arbitrary code, or reach outside the session. Auto-approved now: every registry-marked read-only tool (18 more than before — diagnostics, task/memory queries, document readers), read-only shell pipelines (git log | head -20, ls -la | grep test — the old check rejected every |), session-state tools (tasks/memories/skills), and creating a new file inside the workspace. Still asks: overwrites, writes outside the workspace, .git/hooks and .github/workflows paths, interpreters and test/build runners, anything that deletes or uploads, and sub-agent spawns. The prompt also gained s — approve and stop asking for that one command or file for the session, a scoped alternative to accept-all (/permissions clear drops grants). The shell check is now a real parser instead of a prefix match, which along the way closed a hole where anything starting with python /node /find auto-ran. Details
• August 16, 2026: OpenRouter is now a first-class provider — one key, 400+ models, with the secondary provider pinnable per call (PR #179). /model openrouter// (e.g. openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash) routes through OpenRouter; the key comes from OPENROUTER_API_KEY or /config openrouter_api_key=sk-or-..., and the model shows up in the /model Tab picker and the Web UI picker automatically. Append @[/] — openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash@gmicloud/fp8 — to pin which upstream serves the request; it is sent as OpenRouter's provider request-body object, so the model field stays a real catalog ID. Shipped alongside four routing fixes that gateway model IDs exposed: the provider is no longer re-derived from an already-stripped model string (which read openrouter/deepseek/… as the DeepSeek API and leaked DeepSeek-only request fields), cost estimates and context windows now resolve per model instead of defaulting to $0.00 and a flat 128k, and the @… routing suffix no longer strips a model of its prompt-family overlay. Details
• July 30, 2026 (v3.5.86): Next-prompt ghost text — the REPL predicts the line you'd type next. After each reply the auxiliary (cheap/fast) model drafts your most likely next message and shows it dim at the prompt; Tab (or →) accepts it in full, typing just types over it, and Enter alone never submits it. Drafting runs on a background thread so the prompt never waits, stays silent on any failure (no key / no model → simply no ghost), and is one-shot per prompt so a stale prediction is never shown. Off with /config input_suggest=false or CHEETAH_SUGGEST=0. Also in this release: the terminal tab title now configures itself over Remote-SSH / WSL / devcontainers — it used to write a settings file on the server that the editor never reads, and never retry; it now targets the remote Machine settings the window actually reads. First tagged release carrying the July 11 tab-title / prompt-cache and July 20 tool_profile / bounded-I/O changes. Details
• July 20, 2026: Bounded-I/O fixes and a configurable tool surface. tool_profile selects how many tool schemas are sent each turn — full (default, nothing hidden) / standard (compact coding) / research / orchestration — to cut prompt tokens on small-context models, switchable with /config tool_profile=standard. Also fixes two bounded-I/O regressions: SummarizeLargeFile no longer "summarizes" its own chunk-failure markers (clean Error when map/reduce fails), and the DuckDuckGo parser no longer crashes on a valueless class attribute. Details
• July 11, 2026: Terminal tab title tracks the live task, plus a cross-turn fix for the Anthropic prompt cache. Details
• July 10, 2026 (v3.5.85): REPL quality-of-life. Live typing-time completion now works on every install — prompt_toolkit is a core dependency (no [autosuggest] extra needed, so pip install / uv tool install both get it out of the box); /model gained a Tab-completion picker (provider/model + a two-level LiteLLM tree, PR #166); and sessions now autosave every turn (atomic write + fsync) so a crash or power-loss mid-conversation stays recoverable via /resume — the loud daily/history save still happens once on exit. Details
• July 9, 2026: Official Docker image + one-command publish. Pre-built image on Docker Hub (docker pull chauncygu/cheetahclaws) so you can run the Web UI without cloning; fixes a first-run PermissionError by pre-creating the .cheetahclaws/workspace dirs owned by the non-root user, makes the compose image overridable via CHEETAH_IMAGE, and adds scripts/docker-publish.sh (auto-reads the version, multi/single-arch). New docs sections: Pull from Docker Hub and Interactive setup / CLI mode. Details
• July 8, 2026: New /workspace command manages isolated working directories under ~/.cheetahclaws/workspaces (list/switch/default/create/delete) (PR #162); startup auto-switching is opt-in via workspace_auto (off by default, so launching in a project directory is unchanged), and default is now a sticky key separate from last-used. Details
• July 6, 2026 (v3.5.84): /image now enriches the prompt with local OCR text so even non-vision models can act on clipboard screenshots (error dumps, code, tables); runs only when pytesseract/tesseract are installed and is fully opt-out via CHEETAHCLAWS_IMAGE_OCR=0. Details

For more news, see here.

Sponsor

CheetahClaws

CheetahClaws: A Fast and Easy-to-Use Python native Agent Harness Infrastructure, Supporting Any Model, such as Claude, GPT, Gemini, Kimi, Qwen, Zhipu, DeepSeek, MiniMax, and local open-source models via Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

Content

• Why CheetahClaws
• CheetahClaws vs OpenClaw
• Features
• Supported Models
• Installation
• Usage: Closed-Source API Models
• Usage: Open-Source Models (Local)
• Model Name Format
• Trading Agent
• Web UI
• Documentation (guides for all features)
• Contributing · FAQ · Citation

Demos

More animated demos (code review, /research, /brainstorm, /lab, Telegram/WeChat/Slack bridges) live in docs/media/.

Why CheetahClaws

Claude Code is a powerful, production-grade AI coding assistant — but its source is a compiled ~12 MB TypeScript/Node bundle (~1,300 files, ~283K lines), tightly coupled to the Anthropic API, hard to modify, and impossible to run against a local or alternative model.

CheetahClaws reimplements the same core loop in ~90K lines of readable Python — keeping what you need, dropping what you don't, and adding multi-provider + local-model support. Full comparison: docs/guides/comparison.md.

Where Claude Code wins: richer React/Ink UI, more built-in tools, enterprise features (MDM, team permission sync, OAuth/keychain), AI-driven memory extraction, single-binary production reliability.

Where CheetahClaws wins: any-model switching (--model//model, no recompile) incl. full local/offline support; a readable agent loop in one file (agent.py, ~740 lines); zero build; runtime tool registration + MCP + git plugins + Markdown skills; task dependency graph (blocks/blocked_by); two-layer context compression; offline voice; cloud session sync; bridges to Telegram/WeChat/Slack/QQ.

Who it's for: developers who want a local/non-Anthropic coding assistant, researchers studying how agentic assistants work, and teams who need a hackable baseline — without a Node.js build chain.

CheetahClaws vs OpenClaw

OpenClaw is another popular open-source assistant (TypeScript/Node). The two have different primary goals — OpenClaw is a personal life-assistant across messaging channels; CheetahClaws is a developer/coding tool.

Full comparison — both sides' wins + key design differences (agent loop, tool registration, context compression, memory): docs/guides/comparison.md.

Features