What is Goose?
Goose is a general-purpose, open-source AI agent that runs locally on your own machine. It is not limited to coding — you can use it for research, writing, automation, data analysis, or any task you need to get done. It sits in the Autonomous Coding Agents category of the AI Coding tools and is open-source, written in Rust and licensed Apache-2.0.
Overview
Goose is a general-purpose, open-source AI agent that runs locally on your own machine. It is not limited to coding — you can use it for research, writing, automation, data analysis, or any task you need to get done.
Built in Rust for performance and portability, Goose ships as a native desktop app for macOS, Linux, and Windows, a full CLI for terminal workflows, and an API you can embed anywhere.
It works with 15+ model providers including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Ollama, OpenRouter, Azure, and Bedrock, and connects to 70+ extensions through the open Model Context Protocol (MCP) standard. Goose is part of the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) at the Linux Foundation.
What it does
- Runs entirely on your own machine as a native app, CLI, or embeddable API
- General-purpose: handles code, research, writing, automation, and data analysis
- Works with 15+ LLM providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Ollama, OpenRouter, Azure, Bedrock, and more)
- Connects to 70+ extensions via the Model Context Protocol (MCP) open standard
- Use API keys or your existing Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini subscriptions through ACP
- Build your own custom distribution with preconfigured providers, extensions, and branding
Getting started
You can run Goose as a native desktop app or from the terminal. Download the desktop app for macOS, Linux, or Windows, or install the CLI with a single command.
Install the CLI
Download and run the CLI install script to set up Goose in your terminal.
curl -fsSL https://github.com/aaif-goose/goose/releases/download/stable/download_cli.sh | bashOr download the desktop app
Prefer a graphical experience? Download the native desktop app for macOS, Linux, and Windows from the installation page, then follow the quickstart guide to connect a model provider.
Commands and code are distilled from the project's own documentation — always check the official repo for the latest.
When to use it
- Automate coding tasks and migrate or refactor projects from the terminal
- Run research, writing, or data-analysis workflows with a local AI agent
- Embed an AI agent into your own tools via the Goose API
- Build a custom, branded agent distribution with preconfigured providers and MCP extensions
How Goose compares
Goose alongside other open-source autonomous coding agents tools AI/TLDR tracks, ranked by GitHub stars.
| Tool | Stars | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| opencode | ★ 226k | OpenCode is an open source AI coding agent that runs in your terminal, with built-in build and plan agents and an optional desktop app. |
| Claude Code | ★ 155k | Anthropic's agentic coding tool for the terminal, IDE and GitHub: it understands your codebase, executes routine tasks, explains code and handles git workflows from natural-language commands. |
| OpenAI Codex | ★ 135k | OpenAI's cloud and CLI coding agent that writes features, fixes bugs, and proposes code changes across a repo, running tasks in parallel. |
| Pi | ★ 121k | Minimal terminal coding agent harness with four built-in tools, extended through TypeScript extensions, skills and prompt templates instead of forks. |
| Orca | ★ 121k | Open-source desktop workspace that runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and other CLI coding agents in parallel, each in its own git worktree, with a mobile companion app. |
| Gemini CLI | ★ 109k | An open-source command-line AI agent from Google that connects your terminal to Gemini models for reading code, editing files, running shell commands, and searching the web. |
| autoresearch | ★ 99.7k | Karpathy's minimal harness that hands a coding agent a single-GPU LLM training script and lets it run fixed five-minute experiments, keeping or discarding each change on its own. |
| Goose | ★ 56.4k | Open-source AI agent for your machine — desktop app, CLI, and API |