PikoClaw

The Open Source High-performance AI agent for developers, written in Rust. Inspired from Claude Code leak ; )

Ultra lightweight (~6-7 MB) and blazing fast. All LLMs are Supported i.e. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, OpenRouter.ai etc

Run /connect command to connect to AI Provider of your choice!

Origin: The Claude Code Source Leak

On March 31, 2026, Chaofan Shou discovered that Anthropic accidentally shipped the entire Claude Code source in a .map sourcemap file bundled into the npm package — exposing every file, comment, internal constant, and system prompt to anyone who ran npm pack.

PikoClaw was born from a deep-dive into that leaked source. The feature specs and design specs in our docs are derived directly from that research.

• Derived feature specs: pikoclaw.com/docs/spec/
• Derived design specs: pikoclaw.com/docs/design-spec/

Interface

Themes

Dark	Light

Switch themes with /theme [name] — available names: dark, light, dark-daltonized, light-daltonized, dark-ansi, light-ansi.

Install

curl -fsSL https://pikoclaw.com/install.sh | bash

Auto-detects your OS and architecture, downloads the right binary, verifies the checksum, and installs to /usr/local/bin.

To update, just re-run the same command — it always pulls the latest release and overwrites the existing binary:

curl -fsSL https://pikoclaw.com/install.sh | bash

You can also go to the latest GitHub Release and download the appropriate binary for your platform.

macOS

brew tap PikoClaw/pikoclaw
brew install pikoclaw

Upgrade PikoClaw

brew upgrade pikoclaw

# If not working, then follow:
brew uninstall pikoclaw
brew untap pikoclaw/pikoclaw
brew tap pikoclaw/pikoclaw
brew install pikoclaw

Linux

curl -L https://github.com/PikoClaw/PikoClaw/releases/latest/download/pikoclaw-linux-x86_64 -o pikoclaw
chmod +x pikoclaw
sudo mv pikoclaw /usr/local/bin/

Windows

Download pikoclaw-windows-x86_64.exe from the latest GitHub Release and either:

Option A — add to PATH permanently:

Move-Item pikoclaw-windows-x86_64.exe "$env:USERPROFILE\bin\pikoclaw.exe"
# Add %USERPROFILE%\bin to your PATH if not already there

Option B — run directly:

.\pikoclaw-windows-x86_64.exe

Usage

pikoclaw

pikoclaw --print "explain this codebase"

pikoclaw continue

pikoclaw resume <session-id>

pikoclaw --model sonnet
pikoclaw --model opus
pikoclaw --model haiku

pikoclaw --dangerously-skip-permissions

Configuration

Config file: ~/.config/pikoclaw/config.toml

[api]
model = "claude-sonnet-4-5"
max_tokens = 8192

[permissions]
bash = "ask"
file_write = "ask"
file_read = "allow"
web_fetch = "ask"

[[permissions.rules]]
tool = "bash"
pattern = "rm -rf *"
decision = "deny"

Standard Anthropic API

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."

Third-party providers (OpenRouter, etc.)

PikoClaw supports any provider that exposes an Anthropic-compatible API via Bearer-token auth — no ANTHROPIC_API_KEY required.

Add these to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="sk-or-v1-..."
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://openrouter.ai/api"
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="$OPENROUTER_API_KEY"

# Set the model ID from your chosen provider
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="stepfun/step-3.5-flash:free"

Credential priority: ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN (Bearer) takes precedence over ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (x-api-key) when both are set.

Environment variable reference

Variable	Description
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Standard Anthropic API key (x-api-key header)
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN	Bearer token for third-party providers (e.g. OpenRouter). Takes priority over ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL	Override the API base URL (default: https://api.anthropic.com)
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL	Override the default model (e.g. qwen/qwen3.6-plus:free)
ANTHROPIC_MODEL	Alternative model override (lower priority than ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL)
PIKOCLAW_CONFIG	Override the config file path

Built-in Tools

File & Shell

Tool	Description
Bash	Run shell commands with timeout and background support
PowerShell	Execute PowerShell commands (Windows native or pwsh on macOS/Linux)
Read	Read files with line numbers
Write	Write or create files
Edit	Exact string replacement in files
ApplyPatch	Apply unified diff patches to files
BatchEdit	Apply multiple file edits atomically
Glob	Find files by glob pattern
Grep	Search file contents with regex
NotebookEdit	Edit Jupyter notebook cells

Web

Tool	Description
WebFetch	Fetch and extract text from URLs
WebSearch	Web search via Anthropic beta

Tasks & Scheduling

Tool	Description
TaskCreate	Spawn a background task
TaskGet	Get task details and status
TaskUpdate	Update a task's status or progress
TaskList	List all tasks
TaskStop	Stop a running task
TaskOutput	Get task output / logs
CronCreate	Schedule a recurring cron task
CronDelete	Cancel a scheduled cron task
CronList	List all scheduled cron tasks
Sleep	Wait for a specified duration (ms)

Agent & Session

Tool	Description
AskUserQuestion	Ask the user multiple-choice or free-text questions
TodoWrite	In-session task checklist
Brief	Send a formatted status message to the user
StructuredOutput	Return structured JSON output for SDK/non-interactive sessions
SendMessage	Send a message to another agent
RemoteTrigger	Dispatch a named event to another session
ToolSearch	Search available tools by name or keyword

Git Worktrees

Tool	Description
EnterWorktree	Create a new git worktree and switch the session into it
ExitWorktree	Exit the current worktree session and restore the original directory

Slash Commands

Command	Description
/help	List available commands
/clear	Clear conversation history
/model <name>	Switch model mid-session (sonnet, opus, haiku)
/theme [name]	Cycle themes or set by name
/compact	Summarize history to reduce token usage
/exit	Exit

Custom skills can be added as Markdown files in ~/.config/pikoclaw/skills/.

Building

cargo build --release

Requires Rust 1.80+.

Architecture

Cargo workspace with 10 crates:

crates/
  piko-types        # Core domain types
  piko-config       # Config file and env var loading
  piko-api          # Anthropic API client with SSE streaming
  piko-tools        # Tool trait and built-in tool implementations
  piko-permissions  # Permission policy engine
  piko-session      # Session persistence and resume
  piko-agent        # Core agent loop and orchestration
  piko-mcp          # Model Context Protocol client
  piko-tui          # ratatui interactive terminal UI
  piko-skills       # Slash command registry and dispatcher

Creating New Release

cd PikoClaw
git tag v0.1.0
git push origin v0.1.0

The release.yml workflow will:

1. Build binaries for macOS arm64, macOS x86_64, Linux x86_64, and Windows x86_64
2. Create the GitHub release and upload the binaries
3. Automatically update the SHA256 hashes in homebrew-pikoclaw/Formula/pikoclaw.rb and push it