Aider Documentation

Aider is AI pair programming in your terminal. This documentation will help you get the most out of aider.

Installation

• Installation— How to install and get started pair programming with aider.
  • Optional steps
  • Aider with docker
  • GitHub Codespaces
  • Replit

Usage

• Usage— How to use aider to pair program with AI and edit code in your local git repo.
  • Tips— Tips for AI pair programming with aider.
  • In-chat commands— Control aider with in-chat commands like /add, /model, etc.
  • Chat modes— Using the code, architect, ask and help chat modes.
  • Tutorial videos— Intro and tutorial videos made by aider users.
  • Voice-to-code with aider— Speak with aider about your code!
  • Images & web pages— Add images and web pages to the aider coding chat.
  • Prompt caching— Aider supports prompt caching for cost savings and faster coding.
  • Aider in your IDE— Aider can watch your files and respond to AI comments you add in your favorite IDE or text editor.
  • Notifications— Aider can notify you when it's waiting for your input.
  • Aider in your browser— Aider can run in your browser, not just on the command line.
  • Specifying coding conventions— Tell aider to follow your coding conventions when it works on your code.
  • Copy/paste with web chat— Aider works with LLM web chat UIs
  • Linting and testing— Automatically fix linting and testing errors.
  • Editing config & text files— Use aider to edit configuration files, documentation, and other text-based formats.

Connecting to LLMs

• Connecting to LLMs— Aider can connect to most LLMs for AI pair programming.
  • OpenAI
  • Anthropic
  • Gemini
  • GROQ
  • LM Studio
  • xAI
  • Azure
  • Cohere
  • DeepSeek
  • Ollama
  • OpenAI compatible APIs
  • OpenRouter
  • GitHub Copilot
  • Vertex AI
  • Amazon Bedrock
  • Other LLMs
  • Model warnings

Configuration

• Configuration— Information on all of aider's settings and how to use them.
  • API Keys— Setting API keys for API providers.
  • Options reference— Details about all of aider's settings.
  • YAML config file— How to configure aider with a YAML config file.
  • Config with .env— Using a .env file to store LLM API keys for aider.
  • Editor configuration— How to configure a custom editor for aider's /editor command
  • Reasoning models— How to configure reasoning model settings from secondary providers.
  • Advanced model settings— Configuring advanced settings for LLMs.
  • Model Aliases— Assign convenient short names to models.

Troubleshooting

• Troubleshooting— How to troubleshoot problems with aider and get help.
  • File editing problems
  • Model warnings
  • Token limits
  • Aider not found
  • Dependency versions
  • Models and API keys
  • Using /help

Screen recordings

• Screen recordings— Screen recordings of aider building aider.
  • Add language support via tree-sitter-language-pack— Watch how aider adds support for tons of new programming languages by integrating with tree-sitter-language-pack. Demonstrates using aider to script downloading a collection of files, and using ad-hoc bash scripts to have aider modify a collection of files.
  • Add –auto-accept-architect feature— See how a new command-line option is added to automatically accept edits proposed by the architect model, with implementation. Aider also updates the project's HISTORY file.
  • Don’t /drop read-only files added at launch— Follow along as aider is modified to preserve read-only files specified at launch when using the /drop command. Aider does this implementation and adds test coverage.
  • Warn when users apply unsupported reasoning settings— Watch the implementation of a warning system that alerts users when they try to apply reasoning settings to models that don't support them. Includes adding model metadata, confirmation dialogs, refactoring, and comprehensive test coverage.

Example chat transcripts

• Example chat transcripts
  • Editing an asciinema cast file with aider
  • Download, analyze and plot US Census data
  • Improve css styling of chat transcripts
  • Complete a css exercise with aider
  • Hello aider!
  • Honor the NO_COLOR environment variable
  • Build pong with aider and pygame.
  • Semantic search & replace code with aider
  • Automatically update docs with aider
  • Create a simple flask app with aider
  • Modify an open source 2048 game with aider
  • A complex multi-file change, with debugging
  • Create a “black box” test case

More info

• More info
  • Git integration— Aider is tightly integrated with git.
  • Supported languages— Aider supports pretty much all popular coding languages.
  • Repository map— Aider uses a map of your git repository to provide code context to LLMs.
  • Scripting aider— You can script aider via the command line or python.
  • Infinite output— Aider can handle "infinite output" from models that support prefill.
  • Edit formats— Aider uses various "edit formats" to let LLMs edit source files.
  • Analytics— Opt-in, anonymous, no personal info.
  • Privacy policy

FAQ

• FAQ— Frequently asked questions about aider.

Release history

• Release history— Release notes and stats on aider writing its own code.

Aider LLM Leaderboards

• Aider LLM Leaderboards— Quantitative benchmarks of LLM code editing skill.
  • Code editing leaderboard— Quantitative benchmark of basic LLM code editing skill.
  • Refactoring leaderboard— Quantitative benchmark of LLM code refactoring skill.
  • Scores by release date
  • Benchmark notes
  • Contributing results

Aider blog

• Aider blog