Welcome to Kiwi Code — a terminal-first interface for chatting with AI, managing runs, and connecting a local CLI runtime.

Getting Started

Welcome to Kiwi Code — a terminal-first interface for chatting with AI, managing runs, and connecting a local CLI runtime so AI can execute terminal commands on your machine.

What is Kiwi Code?

Kiwi Code is a Python terminal application with three components:

TUI — kiwi

Full-screen Textual terminal UI for interactive AI chat. The recommended way to use Kiwi Code.

CLI — kiwicli

Command-line tool for scripting, inspection, and one-off queries.

Runtime — kiwi-runtime

WebSocket agent that executes shell commands for the AI on your local machine.

Two Ways to Use Kiwi Code

Primary: Kiwi TUI

  +-- Kiwi Backend ----+          +-- Your Terminal ------------+
  |                     |  HTTP    |                             |
  |   AI Model          |<-------->|      kiwi (TUI)             |
  |   (cloud)           |  SSE     | (Textual full-screen UI)    |
  |                     |          |        |                    |
  |                     |  WSS     |        | spawns             |
  |                     |<-------->|        v                    |
  |                     |          |  kiwi-runtime (local)       |
  |                     |          |  Executes commands          |
  +---------------------+          +----------------------------+

You type a message in the TUI
The message goes to the Kiwi server (cloud AI)
The AI can request terminal commands
The local kiwi-runtime executes them on your machine
Results stream back in real-time

Alternative: Standalone Runtime + Web Dashboard

  +-- Your Terminal --------+     +-- Browser -----------------+
  |                          |     |                            |
  |  kiwi-runtime connect    |     |  kiwicode.ai               |
  |  (WebSocket to backend)  |<===>|  /autocode/new             |
  |                          |     |                            |
  |  AI executes commands    |     |  You type messages here    |
  |  on your machine         |     |                            |
  +--------------------------+     +----------------------------+