Auggie: AI Right in Your Terminal

Andrew KirikAI

In previous posts we talked about good tools for developers: Visual Studio Code on Linux, Qt with CMake for cross-platform GUIs, even WebAssembly to speed up performance-critical code. One thing stays constant – you spend a lot of time in the terminal. Now there is a new tool that brings powerful AI coding agents directly there: Auggie CLI from Augment Code.

Auggie is not just another chat wrapper. It uses a deep context engine that understands your entire codebase (not just a few files), plans tasks, executes changes, reviews code, fixes bugs, or automates workflows like PR reviews and incident response. It works interactively or in scripts/automation (GitHub Actions, CI pipelines). If you like keeping things lightweight without bloated IDEs, this fits perfectly.

Requirements

  • Node.js 22 or later (download from nodejs.org if needed)
  • Compatible shells: zsh, bash, fish, PowerShell.
  • Platforms: macOS, Linux, Windows.
  • Augment account (free tier may exist, but I am using paid one)

Installation

Open your terminal and run:

npm install -g @augmentcode/auggie

That’s it. No extra flags needed for basic install.

Verify it works:

auggie --version

Login and Quick Test

  • Create new project directory:
mkrid templateConsole
cd templateConsole

Auggie needs to be run inside a repo so it can index and understand the codebase.

  • Login to your Augment account:
auggie login

This opens a browser. Follow prompts to sign in or create account. Once done, you’re authenticated!

  • Now let’s ask Auggie to do something for us
> create template for a console C++ application

If you now look at the directory you will see three new file: .gitignore, CMakeLists.txt, main.cpp. Note your result might be different because of nature of AI.

Let’s ask it add readme file: 

> add readme.md with instructions on how to build and run

Auggie will add new file: README.md

For the existing projects…

This starts interactive mode and type something like this:

> Give me a summary of this project
or
> Explain the main logic in src/main.cpp

Auggie could be useful for thing like

  • Auto-fixing test failures
  • Generating docs or cleaning technical debt
  • Code reviews in CI
  • Quick explanations or refactors on large repos

But the best way to use Augment AI is as a plugin for Visual Studio Code (VSCode).

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