AI coding glossary
AI Coding Agent
Also known as: coding agent, ai agent, agentic coding
In one sentence
An AI system that takes multi-step autonomous actions in a codebase, reading files, running commands, calling tools, to complete a high-level task.
Full definition
An AI coding agent is a language model wired up with tools (file system access, shell execution, MCP servers) that takes multi-step autonomous actions to accomplish a high-level task. The leading agents in 2026 are Claude Code (Anthropic, terminal-native with sub-agents and scheduled tasks), OpenAI Codex CLI (open-source terminal agent), Google Antigravity 2.0 (multi-agent desktop + Go CLI, launched May 19, 2026), Cline (open-source VS Code extension with per-step approval), and Cursor's agent mode (Composer). Agents differ from autocomplete (line-level suggestions) and chat (single-turn Q&A) by their multi-step autonomy and tool use.