# Cook AI Agent Cook is a portable terminal AI agent built by Devadutta Ghat. It is a **single static binary** that runs natural-language tasks in the shell, swappable across LLM providers via flags. The defining pitch sits on every page: > One binary. No runtime. Works with any LLM provider. It is a small, opinionated [[AI Agent Harness]] in the same neighborhood as [[Aider]], [[OpenCode]], or a stripped-down [[Claude Code]] ; but with the explicit goal of being the *least heavy* possible distribution. Drop the binary onto an "odd machine with minimal packages installed" and it works. ## Why It Exists Most coding agents ship as a Node, Python, or Bun runtime + a heavy dependency tree. That makes them inconvenient on minimal hosts: a fresh VPS, a [[Crabbox]] runner, an Alpine container, an iPad-style restricted shell. Cook compiles down to one file that doesn't need a runtime ; install via a one-liner and it just runs. A second motivation is **provider neutrality**. Many harnesses are coupled to one model vendor's APIs, idioms, or subscription. Cook treats the model as a flag: switch between [[Anthropic]], [[OpenAI]], Google, [[Groq]], or [[Vercel AI Gateway]] without reinstalling. ## Tech Stack - **Language**: TypeScript (~84%) - **Runtime/build**: [[Bun]] ; the binary is built using Bun's single-file executable - **AI integration**: [[Vercel AI SDK]] ; one abstraction across providers - **License**: MIT ## Built-In Tools The agent has four primitive tools: - **Read** ; file reading - **Write** ; file creation - **Edit** ; targeted file modification - **Bash** ; shell execution, gated by approval Mutations (Write, Edit, Bash) require explicit user approval by default. Reads are free. This is the same default-safe posture Claude Code uses. ## Supported Providers - [[OpenAI]] (GPT-5.2) - [[Anthropic]] (Claude Sonnet 4.6) - **Google** (Gemini 3 Flash Preview) - [[Groq]] - [[Vercel AI Gateway]] Provider switch is a CLI flag; same workflow, different brain. ## Installation ```bash curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf \ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/devadutta/cook/main/install.sh | sh ``` The script downloads the prebuilt binary. For source builds, [[Bun]] is the only prerequisite. ## Use Cases - **Shell-native AI on minimal hosts**: a fresh VPS, a Docker container, a [[Crabbox]] ephemeral runner, a recovery shell - **Pipeline integration**: stdin/stdout-friendly so it composes inside scripts and cron jobs - **Provider experiments**: compare model behaviour by swapping flags, not configs - **Cron-driven autonomous tasks**: Cook + cron = a poor-man's automation loop similar to [[OpenClaw Standing Orders]] ## Where It Doesn't Compete - **Not** a deep IDE-integrated agent ; for that, [[Claude Code]], Cursor, [[Windsurf]], or [[GitHub Copilot CLI|gh copilot]] are heavier and richer - **Not** a long-horizon multi-agent orchestrator ; for that, see [[Cook (Orchestration CLI)]] (different project, same name) or [[OpenClaw Sub-Agents]] - **Not** a managed runtime ; runs locally, no hosted plane ## Naming Collision There is a separate, unrelated project also named **Cook** ; an *orchestration CLI* by rjcorwin that drives Claude Code / Codex / OpenCode through composable workflows. That note is at [[Cook (Orchestration CLI)]]. The two projects share a name and a terminal-CLI form factor but solve different problems. ## References - Website: https://getcook.dev/ - GitHub: https://github.com/devadutta/cook - Hacker News discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47262711 ## Related - [[AI Agent Harness]] - [[AI SDKs]] - [[Vercel AI SDK]] - [[Vercel AI Gateway]] - [[Groq]] - [[Claude Code]] - [[Aider]] - [[OpenCode]] - [[Bun]] - [[Crabbox]] - [[Cook (Orchestration CLI)]] — unrelated tool with the same name