An AI coding agent optimized for minimal use of context tokens, while providing a great user experience.
FrontierHarness Eval benchmark result, click here to download report.zip
- indextool - 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_executiontool - 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.
- tasktool - 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 yourinit.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 usingindexgave me more benefit. I think I'll do bash output filtering like this myself in a future release.
- 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 asgit *. Maki uses tree-sitter to parse the bash command and figure out the permissions requested aregit *andrm *. Disable using--yolo.
- SSRF protection on webfetchcalls.
- A memorytool 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.
- /btwto 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.
- /cdto change dir.
- Use --print --output-format stream-jsonto run UI-less. Output is compatible with Claude Code, so you can easily replace your existing solutions.
- Anthropic - ANTHROPIC_API_KEYonly (using OAuth is against TOS). Bedrock supported viaCLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1.
- OpenAI - OPENAI_API_KEYand OAuth viamaki auth login openai.
- xAI - XAI_API_KEYand OAuth viamaki auth login xai.
- Google - GEMINI_API_KEY.
- Copilot - GH_COPILOT_TOKENor an existing GitHub Copilot sign-in at~/.config/github-copilot/.
- Ollama - OLLAMA_HOSTfor local (e.g.http://localhost:11434), orOLLAMA_API_KEYfor cloud.
- llama.cpp - LLAMA_CPP_HOST(e.g.http://localhost:8080), optionallyLLAMA_CPP_API_KEY.
- Mistral - MISTRAL_API_KEY.
- Z.AI - ZHIPU_API_KEY.
- DeepSeek - DEEPSEEK_API_KEY.
- OpenRouter - OPENROUTER_API_KEY.
- Requesty - REQUESTY_API_KEY. SetREQUESTY_BASE_URL=https://router.eu.requesty.ai/v1for 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 freepublickey 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.
Providers as Lua plugins WIP!
# 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.shOne-liner:
curl -fsSL https://maki.sh/install.sh | shInstalls to ~/.local/bin. Override with MAKI_INSTALL_DIR.
# 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.ps1One-liner:
irm https://maki.sh/install.ps1 | iexcurl -fsSL https://maki.sh/install.sh | shBoth install to %LOCALAPPDATA%\maki and add it to your user PATH. Override with MAKI_INSTALL_DIR / $env:MAKI_INSTALL_DIR.
cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/tontinton/maki.git makinix run github:tontinton/makiOr download a pre-built binary from GitHub Releases.
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": {}
}
}More info at the official docs.
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.