I spent 6 months building a free, open source coding agent that does more with fewer tokens and executes your tasks directly along an optimal path, with better visibility
I’ve been building Tau for the past 6 months a free, open-source coding agent that runs in your terminal. I wanted an agent that costs less and gives better results, with the tools already built in so you don’t have to go hunting for plugins or struggle with visibility issues. That’s why Tau focuses on optimal path execution to minimize token usage and speed up tasks, plus inline image rendering with diagrams so you can clearly see what the agent is doing at every step.
Here's what it can do:
- Native adapters for 28 providers. It talks to each API directly, no proxy in between. Run `/login`, pick a provider, and start working.
- The full agent loop: tools, skills, subagents, MCP servers, LSP and hooks, all working with every provider
- Core tools are optimized to use fewer tokens. The search tool runs on the latest version of ripgrep and is configured to avoid false positives from files and directories such as node_modules and dist the kinds of files that pollute the context. The file-reading tool starts with a skeleton, then reads only the 50 lines it needs instead of an entire 800-line file, fetching only the information relevant to the task. Bash commands go through a security check based on a Go shell parser and best-practice guidelines.
- LSP built in, so the agent sees real type errors, definitions and references.
- Snapshots of your working tree in a separate git repo. Save, diff and restore any time without touching your branches.
- Web search that works with no API key. Firecrawl is there too if you have a key.
- `/remote` lets you follow and approve from your phone, over your Wi-Fi or a free Cloudflare tunnel. Share the tunnel link and your teammates can join the same session.
- TauCode can make your whole workflow up to mush cheaper than any other agent and I’m not exaggerating. This is because TauCode uses a Python kernel tool, anything Python can do, TauCode can do through this tool. For example, when you want to analyze 20 CSV files and extract insights, other agents might need ~30 turns (one turn per CSV), causing the context window to grow, costs to rise, and more analysis/debugging turns. With this tool, TauCode creates one turn with the full workflow, executes it at once, and returns the result. So the context stays clean from pollution, debugging is clearer, output quality is higher, and cost is lower. This is just one example among millions.
- Most agents treat the terminal as plain text, dumping logs and code instead of showing what they’re working with. Tau renders images inline and draws diagrams directly in replies, using real pixels where supported and Unicode art everywhere else, so you can see the agent view and reasoning without leaving the terminal.
- A fully integrated browser tool that allows Tau to interact with the browser like a human. It gives Tau visibility into your frontend design, enables more automated testing, and handles tasks that would normally require human intervention.
- Subagents that stay alive after they finish, so you can send them a follow-up and they still have their context. Agents working in parallel take turns on the same file so that prevent overlapping .
-TauCode thinks about your money and preferences before anything else. You don’t need skills, agents, or MCP for a normal workflow without enabling them just use cheap mode if you need those capabilities, enable them in normal mode with one command: /mode normal. For tools that free you from basic MCP for diagram production, browser automation, etc. they’re all gated and native to TauCode. You just enable or disable them on demand by pressing /tools, so you pay less, or nothing when you don’t need them Second, Tau focuses more on stabilizing your cache hit rate so every model wired to it uses an optimal cache system, so you don’t need to worry about cold turns that your API pays for, with more context growth optimization and a preflight system that prevents some defective turns, so you will pay only for what you use, not for those external factors .
- `/github` for issues, PRs, labels, changelog notes and release checks through `gh`.
- Fallback to another model or provider when one fails or gets overloaded, with the context window adapting when you
switch.
- Session tree navigation, branching, cloning and resume for long sessions.
- Live usage and session stats, plus a readable report at the end.
- It reads the rules you already wrote for other tools: AGENTS.md, Cursor, Copilot, Cline, Clude Code and Windsurf.
- Self-learning. After a big task it suggests one reusable lesson you can approve, edit or skip, and it remembers it in future sessions.
GitHub: https://github.com/AbdoKnbGit/tau
I’m happy to answer any questions. You can find more details and images in the README, and I’m open to answering any questions you may have.
