Most coding assistants suggest snippets. Cline goes further: it is an autonomous agent inside VS Code that plans the task, edits files and runs terminal commands, asking for your approval at each step. It is an open-source alternative to Copilot, Cursor and Windsurf.
What is Cline?
Cline's edge is its Plan/Act mode: it first proposes a plan, then executes the changes, with approval gates at each stage. That gives transparency, you see and authorize every action, instead of an agent that changes everything on its own.
Key features
- Plan/Act mode: plans before executing, with step-by-step approval
- Bring your own key and any model (Anthropic, OpenAI, local via Ollama, OpenRouter)
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) support to add external tools
- Available as an IDE extension, SDK and CLI
- Among the most popular open-source coding agents (around 60k stars)
How Reche uses it
Agents like Cline greatly accelerate development, but AI-generated code needs verification. In RecheOS, every agent output passes through quality gates before reaching production. Reche helps your team adopt this kind of tool with the process that separates speed from risk.