Purpose
claw-code is a public Rust implementation of the claw CLI agent framework, and also a Rust reimplementation of the Anthropic Claude Code agent harness. The project has now been renamed to agent-code. According to the official description, this repository is autonomously developed and maintained by agents, with no human intervention, and is positioned closer to a "museum exhibit" than a serious production project; if you want to run tasks in actual work, the maintainers recommend using LazyCodex or Gajae-Code.
Main capabilities
- Provides a Rust implementation of the claw CLI agent framework, with the canonical implementation located in the rust/ directory.
- Supports build, authentication, CLI, sessions, and parity-harness workflows (see USAGE.md).
- Provides the claw doctor health check, used to verify API keys, model access, and tool configuration.
- Supports local OpenAI-compatible models (such as Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM) as well as offline skill installation.
- Provides a container-first workflow (docs/container.md).
- Provides a Windows-first PowerShell installation and release quick start.
- Regarding ACP / Zed status: claw-code does not currently provide an ACP/Zed daemon or JSON-RPC entry point; claw acp serve is currently only a discoverability alias, returning status and exiting with code 0, and real ACP support is still tracked separately in ROADMAP.md.
Usage
This repository only supports building from source.
Windows (PowerShell) installation steps:
- First install Rust: from https://rustup.rs/ download and run the installer, then close and reopen the terminal when finished.
- Verify that Rust is in PATH: cargo --version. If it fails, reopen the terminal or set PATH according to the installer output and try again.
- Clone and build (PowerShell, Git Bash, or WSL all work): git clone https://github.com/ultraworkers/claw-code cd claw-code/rust cargo build --workspace
- Run (PowerShell, note the .exe and backslashes): $env:ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..." .\target\debug\claw.exe prompt "say hello"
Binary locations after building:
- Debug build (default, faster compilation): rust/target/debug/claw on macOS/Linux, rust/target/debug/claw.exe on Windows.
- Release build (optimized, slower compilation): rust/target/release/claw on macOS/Linux, rust/target/release/claw.exe on Windows.
Optional: add claw to PATH by symlinking (macOS/Linux), using cargo install (all platforms, installs to ~/.cargo/bin/), or updating the shell configuration file (bash/zsh).
Authentication: claw requires an API key (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, etc.), and does not support Claude subscription login as an authentication path.
Suitable scenarios
- Technical personnel who want to study or inspect the Rust reimplementation of the Claude Code agent framework.
- Developers who need local OpenAI-compatible models or offline skill installation.
- Observers interested in the form of an agent-autonomously-maintained project.
Limitations and notes
- This project is autonomously maintained by agents and is positioned as an exhibit rather than a production product; the maintainers recommend LazyCodex or Gajae-Code for production use.
- cargo install claw-code installs the wrong thing: the claw-code crate on crates.io is a deprecated stub, and it places claw-code-deprecated.exe instead of claw; running it only prints "claw-code has been renamed to agent-code". Do not use cargo install claw-code.
- This repository only supports building from source.
- On Windows the binary is named claw.exe rather than claw.
- Claude subscription login authentication is not supported.
- Currently no ACP/Zed daemon or JSON-RPC entry point is provided.
- This repository does not claim ownership of the original Claude Code source code materials, and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or maintained by Anthropic.
- The license is MIT.
