Cline Bot Inc.

Cline Bot Inc. builds Cline, an open-source AI coding agent available as a Visual Studio Code extension, a native desktop app, a command-line tool, and an embeddable SDK. Cline describes itself as "The Open Coding Agent" and is released under the Apache 2.0 license with more than 250 contributors.

The agent coordinates edits across multiple files, reacts to linter feedback, runs terminal commands with live output, and supports a plan-and-act workflow: it aligns on a strategy first, which can be approved before Cline executes the actual changes on its own. Project-specific coding standards and conventions can be encoded through .clinerules files.

Cline works with a range of models — including Claude, GPT, Gemini, and local models via Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint — and extends its capabilities through MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers and custom plugins. With more than 11 million installs, Cline is one of the more widely used AI coding agents in the VS Code ecosystem; separate enterprise options are available for teams.

Beyond single tasks, Cline also supports multi-agent coordination with specialist delegation and cron-based scheduling, for example to run recurring maintenance work automatically. To fit into existing team workflows, Cline can also connect to Slack, Discord, Linear, and common CI/CD pipelines.

As a VS Code extension, Cline competes directly with other AI coding agents such as GitHub Copilot or Cursor, but differentiates itself through its open licensing approach and free choice of underlying language model rather than being tied to a single vendor.