Orca (orca-agent) is an open-source terminal-based AI coding agent created by echoVic and built primarily in Rust. It provides developers with an interactive terminal user interface (TUI) alongside headless harness capabilities to assist with software engineering tasks directly in the console. In day-to-day use, Orca operates through an interactive terminal interface (orca-tui) or headless automation runners. The TUI features responsive terminal rendering, adapting wide outputs and markdown tables dynamically to the terminal width while gracefully falling back to key-value record views in constrained environments. It manages session workflows using a durable prompt queue and background execution capabilities that allow developers to hand off long-running agent tasks without blocking their current workflow. Orca distinguishes itself through its native Rust implementation, robust terminal presentation engine, and integrated task orchestration that supports both interactive TUI work and headless automation harnesses. Its architectural emphasis on turn auto-queueing and durable background execution ensures uninterrupted session management during complex code refactoring and generation tasks. Orca is distributed as an open-source project hosted on GitHub and distributed via npm and Rust crate packages, making it freely available for local installation and integration.
Rust-native architecture — Built with modular Rust crates for high performance and low resource overhead. - Interactive TUI with responsive layout — Includes orca-tui featuring terminal width-aware table rendering and adaptive key-value fallbacks. - Durable prompt queue — Manages task turns asynchronously, queuing commands reliably when background capacities are reached. - Headless harness support — Provides headless execution contracts for automated agent pipelines and scriptable codex workflows. - Multi-package distribution — Packaged for distribution via npm wrappers and native Cargo crate binaries.
Use cases
Use Case: Interactive Terminal Coding Developers work within the orca-tui interface to navigate codebase context, execute iterative code modifications, and view formatted diffs and tables directly in their terminal.
Use Case: Background Task Handoff Engineers offload lengthy generation or refactoring tasks into the durable prompt queue, allowing the agent to complete execution turns in the background while keeping the session responsive.
Use Case: Headless CI and Automation Workflows Teams run Orca using its headless harness contract within automated test pipelines or scripting environments to evaluate code changes without opening a TUI session.
Who it is for
Orca is designed for Rust developers, terminal power users, and engineers looking for an open-source, TUI-driven coding agent with background queueing and headless execution capabilities. It is less suitable for developers who prefer heavy graphical IDE integrations like VS Code sidebars or web-only copilot interfaces.
Install guide
Installation Install Orca globally via npm or build it directly from the Rust repository: bash npm install -g orca-agent # or build from source using Cargo: cargo install --git https://github.com/echoVic/orca-agent
First Run Configure your model provider API credentials in your shell environment and launch the interactive agent: bash export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-api-key" orca
Example Session Launch a prompt session to analyze and refactor a module: bash orca "Analyze the crates/ directory structure and refactor error handling"
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