LLM CLI Tools for Vibe Coding: A Command-Line Showdown

What Is Vibe Coding?

Vibe coding is an AI-driven software development style popularized by Andrej Karpathy. Instead of writing every line yourself, you guide an LLM agent with prompts, review its output, and iterate until the code meets your needs. This shift lets you focus on high-level design and testing, turning coding from typing into directing a collaborative partner.

LLM CLI Tools at a Glance

• Claude Code

• Gemini CLI

• Codex CLI

• Amazon Q CLI

• Aider

Each tool brings unique strengths to the terminal. The table below summarizes their core attributes:

Deep Dive: Tool Highlights

Claude Code

Claude Code transforms your terminal into an agentic workspace. It understands your project structure, executes routine tasks like refactoring and testing, and can run security analyses across pull requests via GitHub integration. Developers appreciate its real-time vulnerability checks and fixes, which help catch issues like SQL injections before they reach production.

Gemini CLI

Google’s open-source CLI agent taps into Gemini 2.5 Pro. It excels at editing across huge context windows and even supports multimodal prompts—so you can feed it PDFs or sketches. With built-in web search and retrieval tools, Gemini CLI stays grounded in real-world data while it generates or debugs code.

Codex CLI

OpenAI’s Codex CLI offers three approval workflows:

1. Suggest – Propose edits and commands for your approval

2. Auto Edit – Apply file changes automatically, ask before shell commands

3. Full Auto – Autonomously read, write, and run commands within a sandboxed environment
   These modes let you choose how hands-on you want to be, balancing speed and safety in a terminal-only interface.

Amazon Q CLI

Amazon Q Developer for CLI brings AI chat and code generation directly to your shell. It translates natural-language instructions into executable snippets, provides inline completions for popular tools (Git, Docker, AWS CLI), and can even scaffold complex Makefiles without manual expertise. Tight AWS integration makes it a go-to for cloud-first teams.

Aider

Aider is the leading open-source CLI pair programmer. It maps your entire codebase for context-rich suggestions, commits changes with intelligent messages, and supports 100+ languages. Unique features include voice-to-code input and image/web content understanding, making it a flexible choice for polyglot and budget-conscious developers.

Choosing the Right CLI Agent

When selecting a vibe coding tool, consider:

• Project Context: Large, monorepo projects benefit from deep context mapping (Claude Code, Aider).

• Security Needs: Automated vulnerability scanning and fixes (Claude Code).

• Multimodal Inputs: If you rely on diagrams or docs, look to Gemini CLI.

• Workflow Control: Codex CLI’s approval modes offer fine-grained oversight.

• Cloud Integration: Amazon Q CLI shines in AWS-centric environments.

Getting Started Tips

1. Anchor your workspace with a spec file (e.g., CLAUDE.md or README.md) to guide the agent.

2. Always preview changes: ask the tool to list proposed edits before applying them.

3. Version-control everything—use Git to track AI changes and enable safe rollbacks.

4. Combine agents: use one for scaffolding (Gemini CLI), another for security review (Claude Code), and Aider for multi-model flexibility.

5. Iterate prompts: refine your instructions as you learn each tool’s strengths and limitations.

Vibe coding is revolutionizing how we build software—by elevating developers to architects and reviewers rather than mere typists. With the right CLI agents in your toolkit, you can harness AI’s power to prototype faster, maintain higher code quality, and focus on solving real problems. Choose your companion wisely, and enjoy the new era of terminal-first development.