Chat with CLI Agents

You can use your own Command Line Interface (CLI) agents with your Zide workspace to perform tasks within your projects.

Open a CLI Agent tab

You can use a CLI agent that is already configured and active on your local machine with Zide. To start a conversation with a CLI agent, click Tools > Chat With CLI Agent and select a CLI agent. The chat opens in a CLI Agent tab.

The tab header shows the agent’s logo and the profile the session was launched with. Sessions running in unrestricted mode (for example with --dangerously-skip-permissions or --yolo) show a persistent Unrestricted badge in the header. Hover over the badge to see the exact flag the session was started with.

Unrestricted sessions ask for confirmation before they start. Choosing Don’t warn me again stores that choice on the profile; you can review or undo it later with the Skip the confirmation when starting sessions checkbox in the profile editor.

Closing a CLI Agent tab asks for confirmation only while the agent is actively working; an idle session closes without asking. You can turn the warning off entirely from the dialog itself or in Settings.

Your conversation with a CLI agent starts automatically. CLI agents are integrated into Zide and can read and edit files in your project. To connect a CLI agent to Zide, see Connect a CLI agent.

If a CLI Agent tab is already open when you start Zide, click Start Session to start a new conversation with your CLI agent.

You can also use Zide Assist, an AI assistant built into Zide. For more information, see Zide Assist. To understand how CLI agents and Zide Assist compare and how they can work side by side, see Zide Assist vs. your own AI tools.