# Kimi CLI Kimi CLI (official name: Kimi Code CLI) is [[Moonshot AI]]'s open-source terminal-native AI coding agent, the CLI surface of the [[Kimi Code]] product. It runs an agentic loop in the terminal, operating on code, files, and shell commands via natural language, backed by the Kimi K2 model line. It is positioned alongside [[Claude Code]] and [[Gemini CLI]] as a first-class agentic coding CLI — distinguishing itself with open-weight model support and native Agent Client Protocol (ACP) integration. ## Key Features - **Interactive CLI** (`kimi`) — conversational AI agent in the terminal with natural language or shell command execution - **Browser UI** (`kimi web`) — local browser interface with session management and file references - **ACP service** (`kimi acp`) — runs as a service exposing the Agent Client Protocol for IDE integration (e.g., Zed, OpenClaw) - **Shell mode** — toggle with `Ctrl-X` to run shell commands directly inside Kimi CLI - **[[Model Context Protocol (MCP)]] support** — connects to local (stdio) and remote (http/sse) MCP servers; manage with `kimi mcp` sub-commands - **Multi-provider** — supports Moonshot AI, OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini as backends - **Tool approval flow** — built-in approval and timeout controls for external tool execution ## Built-in Tools File read/write, shell execution, code analysis, web search and fetch. ## Commands - `kimi` — start interactive session - `kimi web` — open browser UI - `kimi acp` — start ACP service - `kimi mcp` — manage MCP server configurations ## Positioning Kimi CLI is Moonshot's answer to [[Claude Code]] and [[Gemini CLI]] in the agentic terminal agent space, with two differentiating bets: 1. Open-weight models (K2 line) can be self-hosted 2. First-class ACP support makes it a drop-in backend for any ACP-compatible editor or orchestrator ## References - GitHub: https://github.com/MoonshotAI/kimi-cli - Docs: https://moonshotai.github.io/kimi-cli/en/guides/getting-started.html - Kimi Code Docs: https://www.kimi.com/code/docs/en/kimi-code-cli/getting-started.html - API platform: https://platform.kimi.ai ## Related - [[Kimi Code]] - [[Kimi]] - [[Moonshot AI]] - [[AI Agent Harness]] - [[Claude Code]] - [[Gemini CLI]] - [[GitHub Copilot CLI]] - [[Model Context Protocol (MCP)]] - [[AI Agents]] - [[Agentic Engineering]] - [[Agentic Development Environment (ADE)]]