Continue is the leading open-source IDE extension for AI-assisted coding. It works inline in your editor, has a chat panel, and supports custom slash commands. It is a different category from a CLI agent, more of a Copilot replacement than a Claude Code one.
- Tight IDE integration, no context-switching
- Strong autocomplete and inline edits
- Provider-agnostic, works with any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
- Tied to the editor, no headless or terminal mode
- Multi-agent and long-running tasks are out of scope
- Limited to single-file edits, not codebase-wide refactors
- No marketplace for sharing whole agent setups
What you get when you switch
Headless and CLI-first
Run the same agent in a terminal, in CI, on a cron, or behind a webhook. The editor is one of many surfaces.
Codebase-wide refactors are first-class
A coordinator that spawns explorers, finds every call site, and patches them in sequence. Continue does not target this shape.
Composes into longer workflows
Plug the agent into a cron job, a Slack channel, a webhook. The agent definition is the same YAML.
Install and run a real agent
# one-line install (Mac, Linux, Windows + Git Bash)
curl -sSL https://digitorn.ai/install | sh
# install a coding agent from the Hub
digitorn install hub://digitorn/digitorn-code
# chat with it
digitorn chat digitorn-codeGet the next post in your inbox.
Engineering notes from the Digitorn team. No marketing, no launch announcements, no "10 prompts that will change your life". Just the things we write that we'd want to read.