Paseo is an open-source AI agent harness and orchestration framework maintained by the getpaseo project. Designed for managing terminal-based and automated coding workflows, Paseo structures agent execution environments through modular packages, extensible skills, and dedicated execution runtimes. In daily use, Paseo acts as a bridge between LLM providers and developer environments. It uses a structured skills system (supporting standardized skill definitions in directories like `.agents/skills` and `.claude/skills`) and a plugin architecture to provide AI agents with fine-grained access to local tools, repositories, and execution contexts. Developers can configure agent behavior and constraints via project-level configuration files. Paseo differentiates itself through its strong emphasis on reproducibility and containerized runtime support. With built-in Nix environments, Docker configuration, and a modular monorepo architecture, Paseo provides predictable execution boundaries for autonomous agents, preventing uncontrolled side effects on host machines. Paseo is distributed as open-source software under an open license on GitHub. It is actively maintained with support for standard package managers, multi-runtime configurations via Mise, and modern linting infrastructure.
Tags: agent harness, ai agent, cli, coding agent, developer tools, OpenSource
.agents/skills and .claude/skills. - Plugin ecosystem — Supports custom plugins and extensions to connect external APIs, developer tools, and workflow automations. - Containerized execution — Includes preconfigured Docker setups to isolate agent actions and run commands safely. - Nix environment support — Provides Nix flakes and shell definitions for reproducible developer environments across different platforms. - Monorepo architecture — Designed as a modular set of packages allowing integration as a standalone CLI or embedded orchestrator. - Standardized agent contracts — Uses project-level specification files like AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md to define operational constraints..agents/skills to expose internal CLI utilities and custom API endpoints directly to LLM agents.AGENTS.md, ensuring consistent behavior regardless of the underlying LLM provider.Paseo is targeted at software engineers, DevOps teams, and platform developers who need a customizable, reproducible harness for orchestrating autonomous coding agents and custom toolsets. It is less suited for developers seeking an out-of-the-box GUI coding assistant with no configuration requirements.
bash # Clone the repository git clone https://github.com/getpaseo/paseo.git cd paseo # Install dependencies and build packages npm install npm run build Alternatively, if using Nix for isolated builds: bash nix developbash export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your-api-key" # Configure optional plugin and tool settings in .env or .mise.tomlbash # Execute a task using defined project skills paseo run "Inspect failing tests in packages/core and generate a patch"Part of CLI Coding Agents
Categories: AI Coding Agents, Code Assistants, Developer Tools