Claude Code

Claude Code is Anthropic's first-party coding agent, built around the Claude model family (currently Opus 4.7 as the default driver). It maps codebases, performs multi-file edits, runs shell commands, drives a browser, and ties into GitHub/GitLab for full issue-to-PR loops. You can drive it from a terminal, the VS Code or JetBrains extensions, the desktop app, claude.ai/code in a browser, or even Slack, and a 'Routines' feature lets you schedule recurring agent runs.

It is the most direct competitor to Cursor, Cline, and OpenAI Codex CLI, and unlike Cursor it is a true CLI-first agent rather than an editor fork. Access is bundled with Anthropic's consumer plans: Pro at $17-20/mo, Max 5x at $100/mo, Max 20x at $200/mo, plus pay-as-you-go via the Anthropic API for Console accounts. For shops already paying for Claude, it is effectively free; for everyone else the Max tiers are the realistic plan once you actually use it for serious refactors.

It supports MCP servers for custom tools, has hooks for automating behaviour on events, and runs the same model you can call from the API, so prompts and skills are portable. The honest caveat: it is closed-source, token-greedy on large repos, and Opus pricing eats Max quotas fast on long agentic runs.