Understand a project, make changes, and run tests from your terminal. Bring your own model (OpenAI, Anthropic, custom relays) or connect accounts with search, plugins, and multimodal tools in the same workflow.

Quick start

1. Install Rig

npm — requires Node.js 22.19+ (22.x), 24.2+ (24.x), 25, or 26:

npm install -g @shivcdhry/rig

Reopen your terminal and verify the installation:

rig --version
rig --help

2. Configure a model provider (BYOK)

Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) lets you connect any OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible provider. Set your API key in the shell, then register the provider:

export RIG_PROVIDER_API_KEY="your-api-key"

rig provider add --name my-provider --base-url https://api.openai.com/v1 \
  --api-format openai-completions --model gpt-4o \
  --api-key-env RIG_PROVIDER_API_KEY --use

--use tests the first listed model before saving and selecting it.

Supported API formats: openai-completions, openai-responses, and anthropic-messages. See the model examples for more setups and custom headers.

3. Run your first task

Open the project you want to work on:

cd /path/to/your/project
rig

Describe your task in the interactive TUI, or run it directly from your command line:

rig "Find a failing test, fix the implementation, and run the relevant tests."

| Entry point | Command | Use it for | | --- | --- | --- | | Interactive TUI | rig [prompt] | Explore code, converse, and review changes with granular permissions. | | Headless | rig exec [prompt] | Shell scripts, CI/CD, batch processing, and evaluations. | | ACP | rig acp | Editors and clients supporting the Agent Client Protocol. |

Continue your work

# Resume the latest session in the current workspace
rig --continue

# Open the interactive session picker
rig --session

Inside the TUI, use /sessions to browse past sessions and /help to view all available commands and shortcuts.

| Action | Shortcut | | --- | --- | | Send a message or steer running task | Enter | | Queue a follow-up message while task runs | Alt+Enter | | Insert a newline | Shift+Enter | | Reference a workspace file or directory | @ | | Toggle Plan Mode | Shift+Tab | | Switch permission modes | Alt+M | | Close panel or interrupt task | Escape / Ctrl+C |

Capabilities

| Feature | Description | | --- | --- | | Edit & Verify Code | Read files, inspect diffs, execute shell commands and tests, with granular permission boundaries and sandboxing. | | Choose Your Model | Bring your own keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, or compatible custom endpoints and relays. | | Tools & Extensibility | Built-in search, MCP (Model Context Protocol), local skills, and plugin system. | | Flexible Workflows | Interactive terminal UI, headless CLI automation for pipelines, and ACP for IDE integration. |

Build from source

To develop Rig locally:

git clone https://github.com/shivcdhry/rig.git
cd rig
pnpm install
pnpm build
pnpm rig

To run Rig against any directory using your source build:

node /path/to/rig/dist/cli.js

Documentation

• Getting Started & Installation
• Usage Examples
• Architecture & Design
• Contributing

License

MIT © Rig contributors. See LICENSE for details.