Despite the lack of stars, this is the best open source coding assistant you can use. See below for why.

pip install advanced-aicode
aicode

Why is this the best open source coding assistant? Because this is a front end for aider.chat, but with all the sharp edges filed off and the defaults you want, included automatically.

Features

• aicode is easier to install. Like WAY easier.
• aicode will not f@ck up your global pip environment.
• aicode will notify you of updates, invoke it with--update
• aicode will always turn on aider.chat's architect mode, which has significantly higher coding performance than non architect mode.
• aicode always invokes --watch mode, unless you shut it off via --no-watch

Before watch mode, you had to manually add files to the chat terminal, then tell aider what you wanted to do. Now aider will watch the files and look for comments that container AI! in it, then follow the instructions.

So for example, say you have this piece of code

def list_files(root: Path) -> list[Path]:
  pass

Now let's say you want to implement this function. You will fire up aicode and type in a comment that ends with AI! in it, which the ai will see.

def list_files(root: Path) -> list[Path]"
  pass # please implement this AI!

Aider will automatically see this and start editing the file!

The package name is NOT the same as the command tool. The package is advanced-aicode and the tool is called aicode. Someone else grabbed package name aicode over a year ago and this is the best name I could come up with to get it into pypi.

Happy CODING!

• 2.1.0 - When using --deep mode, prefer to use o3, per aider-chat benchmarks for the winner in the polyglot test (6/3/2025).
• 2.0.35 - Bunch of errors fixed. Upgrading and purging is now safer. New aider-chat backend installs are located in incrementing folders.
• 2.0.30 - Architect mode is now off by default. It's not general purpose. To switch it on, use --deep
• 2.0.18 - Internal refactor to make interactive usage of aider.chat easier to deal with.
• 2.0.6 - Asking for restoring history is now disabled always.
• 2.0.5 - Watchmode now enabled by default.
• 2.0.4 - New sonnet model anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022 is now the default for claude mode.
• 2.0.3 - Now using Semi secret instead of keyring, which encrypts the key at a secret location.
• 2.0.2 - If there is chat history then aicode will ask if you want to restore it.
• 2.0.1 - Implement disabling of git if a git directory can't be found.
• 2.0.0 - Implemented aider's new "architect" mode, which although is a small change in the code, does change how the product is used. Disable this by using --no-architect to get the old behavior.
• 1.2.16 - Linting is disable by default
• 1.2.15 - Aider is now installed in a side package. This means Aider won't be cleared when you uninstall advanced-aicode but should resolve the issue with OSX throwing exceptions for locked files. See aicode --purge
• 1.2.14 - Fixes wrong VIRTUAL ENV path.
• 1.2.13 - Fixes KeyboardInterrupt exception in trampoline.
• 1.2.12 - Final fixes (I hope) in this cycle.
• 1.2.11 - Fixes some issues with warnings being emitted.
• 1.2.10 - Adds missing setuptools dependency that was causing a non fatal error.
• 1.2.9 - Now uses trampoline to re-root the cwd when calling the program. Fixes Linux/MacOS.
• 1.2.8 - aicode --upgrade now more robust. Also fixed a path issue on windows.
• 1.2.7 - aicode --upgrade has been fixed to work with uv package upgrades.
• 1.2.6 - Re-rooting trick fails for mac/linux, only apply it for win32
• 1.2.5 - Cwd directory is inserted so aider-chat backend is invoked from the current command line.
• 1.2.4 - Switch isolated environment to an ad-hoc usage of uv. Much faster and better!
• 1.2.3 - Fixes a win32 bug related to isolated-environment
• 1.2.2 - Propagate fixes from isolated-environment to fix Mac/Linux
• 1.2.1 - Buf fix for isolated-environment by using shell=True.
• 1.2.0 - Aider is now installed with isolated-environment instead of pipx for better isolation. We now use keyring to securely store your api keys.
• 1.1.8 - Custom path now set for pipx, should fix most pipx issues.
• 1.1.7 - Version detection fixed now that the api has been made much better.
• 1.1.6 - Fixes has update when the versions match
• 1.1.5 - Fixes --just-check-update which had a typo in the last version as --just-check-updated
• 1.1.4 - Fixes aider --check-update with --just-check-update
• 1.1.3 - Fixes aider --skip-check-update which is now --no-check-update
• 1.1.1 - Fix a infinit recursion loop while trying to find the .git directory.
• 1.1.0 - The --slow, --fast, --claude3 are not long used. Now it's just --chatgpt and --claude.
• 1.0.4 - If --upgrade fails, then attempt recovery by asking the user to upgrade pipx and then try again.
• 1.0.3 - Improved version parsing so that stuff like X.X.X-dev can be parsed.
• 1.0.2 - `--claude3`` now maps to sonnet mode. This is now the default if both keys are present for claude3 and openai.
• 1.0.1 - Improve readme.
• 1.0.0 - Initial release.