What Is an Agentic IDE?

An agentic IDE is a development environment where AI coding agents take a task from a prompt to a checked change: they read the code, edit files, run commands and tests, and keep iterating while you assign the work and review what comes back. In 2026 the term covers two shapes. Editor-first tools such as Cursor, Zed, Kiro, and the Google Antigravity IDE put agents inside a code editor. Agent-first workspaces such as Agentastic, JetBrains Air, Superset, Conductor, Orca, and the Claude Code and Codex desktop apps make tasks and sessions the main surface, so several agents can work at once.

If you mostly write code yourself, start editor-first. If you mostly assign and review, start agent-first. Below are a checklist for testing any product's claims and 13 agentic IDEs, reviewed against first-party documentation on October 5, 2026.

Agentic IDE examples at a glance#

Tool	Shape	Agents it runs	Isolation for parallel work	Platforms
Agentastic	Agent-first workspace	55 built-in definitions plus any CLI	Worktree, Docker or Apple container, SSH host, cloud VM	macOS
Cursor	Editor plus an agent-first Agents Window	Cursor's agent	Worktrees, cloud VMs, SSH	macOS, Windows, Linux
Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf)	Editor plus an Agent Command Center	Cascade, Devin, ACP agents	Worktrees, cloud sessions	macOS, Windows, Linux
Kiro	Editor-first, spec-driven	Kiro's agent and subagents	Subagents with separate context, cloud sandboxes	macOS, Windows, Linux
Google Antigravity	IDE plus a multi-agent command center	Antigravity agents	OS-level terminal sandbox	macOS, Windows, Linux
Zed	Editor-first	Zed's agent, ACP agents, terminal threads	Optional worktree per thread	macOS, Windows, Linux
JetBrains Air	Agent-first ADE, now also inside JetBrains IDEs	Codex, Claude Agent, Gemini CLI, Junie, ACP agents	Git worktrees or Docker	macOS, Windows, Linux
Claude Code Desktop	First-party agent app	Claude Code	Git isolation per session, cloud, SSH	macOS, Windows, Linux (beta)
Codex app	First-party agent app	Codex	Worktree chats, cloud	macOS, Windows, Linux
Superset	Agent-first workspace	Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, other CLIs	Worktree per task	macOS
Conductor	Agent-first workspace	Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode	Worktree per task, cloud microVMs	macOS, iOS
Orca	Agent-first workspace	Any CLI agent	Worktree per agent	macOS, Windows, Linux
Nimbalyst	Agent-first visual workspace	Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode	Optional worktree per session	macOS, Windows, Linux

What is an agentic IDE?#

Definition: an agentic IDE is an integrated development environment in which AI agents carry out coding tasks end to end, editing, running, and testing code, while a developer assigns the work and reviews the result.

Simon Willison's working definition of an agent explains the "agentic" part: "Agents run tools in a loop to achieve a goal." For a coding agent, one of those tools executes code. The agent makes a change, runs the build or the tests, reads what broke, and goes around again.

An agentic IDE is the environment built around that loop. It gives the agent a safe place to act and tools to check its own work, and it gives you a way to see what happened and decide whether the result ships.

We described the shift in early 2025 as three properties: isolation, parallelism, and closed loops. That still holds, with one addition. Agents now produce diffs faster than anyone can read them, so the review surface matters as much as the agent.

Agentic IDE vs AI IDE#

"AI IDE" usually means an editor that helps you write: completions, a chat panel, and edits you accept one at a time. An agentic IDE hands over the task itself.

	Autocomplete	AI chat in the editor	Agentic IDE
Unit of work	The next few lines	A question or a scoped edit	A task with a definition of done
Who runs commands and tests	You	Mostly you	The agent
Where changes land	At your cursor	In your working copy	In a separate checkout per task
How you check the work	Accept or reject as you type	Read the proposed edit	Review a diff, test output, and a preview
Your role	Author	Author with an assistant	Assigner and reviewer

A copilot suggests code while you type. An agent writes code while you sleep. Most products now do both, so the label matters less than the mode you will spend your day in.

The two shapes of agentic IDE#

Editor-first: agents inside your editor#

You still spend most of the day in a code editor, and the agent lives in a panel next to your files. Cursor, Zed, Kiro, and the Antigravity IDE start here. This shape fits when you write a real share of the code yourself and want completions, navigation, and refactoring close at hand.

Agent-first: an editor inside your agent workspace#

The main objects are tasks and sessions. Each task gets its own checkout, terminal, and diff, and the editor is where you read and fix what came back. Agentastic, JetBrains Air, Superset, Conductor, Orca, Nimbalyst, and the first-party Claude Code and Codex desktop apps start here. This shape fits when you assign more code than you type.

The two shapes are converging#

The large editors are adding agent-first rooms. Cursor's documentation calls its Agents Window an agent-first interface. When Windsurf became Devin Desktop, it gained an Agent Command Center with a Kanban view of local and cloud agents. Google ships Antigravity 2.0, a command center for parallel agents, next to the Antigravity IDE. And on October 1, 2026, JetBrains opened early access to Air inside its IDEs. When it launched Air in March, JetBrains drew the line this way: "IDEs add tools to the code editor, while Air builds tools around the agent."

The useful question is no longer which category a product belongs to, but which surface you will live in.

What makes an IDE agentic: a checklist#

Test any product that calls itself an agentic IDE with these questions. The first three decide whether it is agentic at all; the rest, whether it holds up with several agents running.

1. Can the agent act? It edits files and runs commands, builds, and tests itself, instead of handing you a snippet to paste.
2. Does it close the loop? It reads failures and compiler errors and tries again, so "done" means a check passed, not that text was produced.
3. Can you review before anything lands? Every change arrives as a diff you can read, comment on, and reject.
4. Is each task isolated? A Git worktree at minimum. A container, remote host, or VM when the task touches packages, services, or the network.
5. Do new workspaces start ready? A setup script installs dependencies and copies local config, so the agent doesn't burn its budget figuring out the build.
6. Does it tell you who needs you? Waiting, failed, and finished are different states, and you should not have to poll terminals to find them.
7. Can the agent check behavior, not just code? Test output, an app preview, or a browser the agent can drive.
8. Do you choose the agent? One vendor's agent is fine if you use one provider. Mixed teams need several agents, or any CLI.
9. Can work outlive your laptop? Remote hosts or cloud sandboxes keep long runs going after the lid closes.

Agentic IDE list: 13 examples in 2026#

Each entry was checked against the vendor's own site or documentation on October 5, 2026. These products change monthly, so follow the links before you decide.

Editor-first agentic IDEs#

• Cursor: an AI code editor whose Agents Window runs parallel agents in local worktrees, cloud VMs, and over SSH. macOS, Windows, Linux.
• Devin Desktop: the new name for Windsurf. Cognition kept the full IDE and added an Agent Command Center with Spaces and a Kanban view, plus ACP support for third-party agents. macOS, Windows, Linux.
• Kiro: AWS's agentic IDE starts from a spec. It turns a prompt into requirements, a design, and a task list, then works through them with parallel agents on your machine or in a cloud sandbox. macOS, Windows, Linux.
• Google Antigravity: Google's agent platform includes an IDE with an agent manager and reviewable artifacts, and Antigravity 2.0 for running several local agents at once. macOS, Windows, Linux, with a $0 individual plan.
• Zed: a fast editor with source on GitHub. Its Threads Sidebar runs Zed's own agent, external agents such as Claude and Codex over ACP, and terminal threads side by side, with optional worktree isolation. macOS, Windows, Linux.

First-party agent apps#

• Claude Code Desktop: the Code tab in Anthropic's Claude app. It runs parallel sessions with Git isolation, a diff view, an app preview, a terminal, and a file editor, locally, in the cloud, or over SSH. Claude only. macOS, Windows, Linux (beta).
• Codex app: Codex now lives in the ChatGPT desktop app. Codex chats can run in Git worktrees, and Handoff moves a chat between your local checkout and its worktree. Codex only. macOS, Windows, Linux.

Agent-first workspaces (multi-agent IDEs)#

• Agentastic: a native Swift Mac app that runs 55 built-in agent definitions plus any terminal command in worktrees, containers, SSH hosts, or cloud VMs, with terminal, editor, browser, review, and Manager Agents in one window. macOS only. Free; closed source.
• JetBrains Air: JetBrains' agentic development environment, in public preview since March 2026. It runs Codex, Claude Agent, Gemini CLI, Junie, and other ACP agents in Git worktrees or Docker, and since October also inside JetBrains IDEs as an early-access plugin. Desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
• Superset: a source-available workspace (Elastic License 2.0) that runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and other CLI agents, one Git worktree per task, with scheduled agents. macOS.
• Conductor: a Mac app that runs Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenCode in parallel, one worktree-backed workspace per task, now with cloud microVM sandboxes and an iOS app.
• Orca: an MIT-licensed agent development environment that gives every CLI agent its own worktree, with terminals, diffs, and a browser. macOS, Windows, Linux.
• Nimbalyst: an MIT-licensed visual workspace where Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode sessions sit beside editable markdown, mockups, diagrams, and tasks, with opt-in worktrees. macOS, Windows, Linux.

Is Cursor an agentic IDE?#

Yes. Cursor's homepage now describes the product as a coding agent, and the agent does what the checklist asks: it edits, runs commands, and iterates. The Agents Window takes it further, running many agents in parallel across worktrees, cloud VMs, and SSH hosts, and moving a task between local and cloud.

What Cursor is built around is Cursor's own agent and service. If your plan is to run Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini CLI side by side under their own subscriptions, a workspace that launches those CLIs directly is the better fit, and you can still open any worktree in Cursor to edit. We compare the two in Agentastic vs Cursor.

Agentic IDE vs CLI coding agents#

Claude Code, the Codex CLI, and Gemini CLI are agents, not IDEs. They run in a terminal, edit your files, and execute commands. An agentic IDE is where you run and supervise them, and Agentastic, Superset, Conductor, and Orca all launch the official CLIs under your own subscriptions.

The CLI alone is enough when you run one or two agents in separate worktrees and are happy to handle setup, status, and review with Git, as in our guides to parallel Claude Code agents and parallel Codex agents. An IDE pays for itself when you lose track of which terminal is waiting on you, when every worktree needs the same setup steps, or when you want one provider to write and another to review. For the first-party apps, see Claude Code Desktop vs CLI and Codex app vs CLI.

Multi-agent IDEs and the ADE label#

A multi-agent IDE is an agentic IDE designed for many agents at once: one isolated checkout per task, a view of every session's state, and a review path per result. Our multi-agent IDE page covers what that looks like in Agentastic.

"Agentic development environment", or ADE, names the same idea from the workspace side. Warp introduced Warp 2.0 on June 24, 2025 as what it called "the first Agentic Development Environment". JetBrains describes Air as an agentic development environment, and Orca calls itself an agent development environment. We wrote up our own definition in What is an agentic development environment?

The labels overlap more than they differ. Run the checklist above against any of them.

How to choose an agentic IDE#

Start from how you work, not from the category name.

If this describes you	Start with	Why
You still write most of the code	Cursor or Zed	The editor is the product, with agents beside it
You want a spec before any code	Kiro	Requirements, design, and tasks come first
You use exactly one provider	Claude Code Desktop or the Codex app	Lowest setup, provider-native sessions
Your team lives in JetBrains IDEs	JetBrains Air	Agents and IDE inspections in one place
You run several different CLI agents on a Mac	Agentastic	Worktrees, containers, remote hosts, and review in one native app
Your team uses Windows or Linux	Orca, Nimbalyst, Kiro, or Antigravity	Desktop apps for macOS, Windows, and Linux
An open-source license is required	Zed, Orca, or Nimbalyst	Source published on GitHub

Then ask two more questions. Must work keep running when the laptop is closed? Pick a tool with remote or cloud execution. Who reviews the output? If it is you, pick the review surface you can stand to read for hours. For a ranked comparison with tradeoffs, see the best agentic IDEs in 2026.

How Agentastic implements an agentic IDE#

Agentastic takes the agent-first shape and covers each item on the checklist in one native Mac app.

• Your agents. 55 built-in agent definitions, including Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Cursor, Copilot, and OpenCode, plus any terminal command as a custom agent. Thirty can also run as a structured Chat transcript.
• Isolation per task. A Git worktree by default, a Docker or Apple container, a remote machine over SSH, or a cloud VM on Modal, Fly.io, or Vercel Sandbox that keeps running after you close the laptop.
• Ready workspaces. Setup scripts run when a worktree or container is created.
• Attention. A durable notification inbox, Shift-Command-U to jump to the next agent that needs you, and a Kanban board of every worktree.
• Work surfaces. A Ghostty-based terminal, a native editor with LSP, and a WebKit browser agents can drive.
• Review. A diff viewer with guided review, AI code review with Claude Code, Codex, CodeRabbit, or Greptile, and GitHub pull requests you can merge in the app.
• Orchestration. Manager Agents, scheduled agents, and the dev CLI, covered in our agent orchestration guide.

The tradeoffs are real. Agentastic runs only on macOS 14 or later, it is closed source, and the iPhone Companion is a public beta on TestFlight. It is free; you bring your own agent subscriptions or API keys. Deciding how much autonomy to hand agents? Read agentic engineering vs vibe coding. For the whole line from issue to merged pull request, see the AI software factory.

Sources#

• Cursor: Agents Window, downloads
• Devin Desktop: product page, downloads
• Kiro: home, downloads
• Google Antigravity: products, terminal sandbox
• Zed: parallel agents, source code
• JetBrains Air: home, Air on Windows
• First-party apps: Claude Code Desktop, ChatGPT desktop app
• Workspaces: Superset source and license, Conductor docs, Orca source, Nimbalyst source
• Definitions: Warp 2.0 announcement, Simon Willison on agentic engineering
• On this site: best agentic IDEs, multi-agent IDE, AI agent orchestration, what is an AI software factory?

Frequently asked questions#

What is an agentic IDE?#

An agentic IDE is a development environment where AI coding agents carry out tasks themselves: they edit files, run commands and tests, and iterate until a goal is met, while you assign the work and review the result. It can be an editor with agents built in, like Cursor or Zed, or a workspace built around agents, like Agentastic or JetBrains Air.

What is the difference between an agentic IDE and an AI IDE?#

An AI IDE helps you write code with completions, chat, and edits you apply yourself. An agentic IDE delegates a whole task to an agent that runs its own commands and tests in an isolated checkout, and you review a finished diff instead of individual suggestions.

Is Cursor an agentic IDE?#

Yes. Cursor's agent edits, runs, and tests code, and its Agents Window runs many agents in parallel across Git worktrees, cloud VMs, and SSH hosts. It is built around Cursor's own agent, so if you want several provider CLIs side by side, pair it with a multi-agent workspace.

What are some examples of agentic IDEs?#

Editor-first examples include Cursor, Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf), Kiro, Google Antigravity, and Zed. Agent-first examples include Agentastic, JetBrains Air, Superset, Conductor, Orca, Nimbalyst, Claude Code Desktop, and the Codex app.

Should I use an agentic IDE or a CLI agent like Claude Code?#

Use the CLI on its own when you run one or two agents and are comfortable managing Git worktrees yourself. Add an agentic IDE when you run several tasks at once, use more than one provider, or want setup, status, and review in one place. Many agentic IDEs, Agentastic included, run the CLI agents you already have.

Is there a free or open-source agentic IDE?#

Zed, Orca, and Nimbalyst publish their source code, and Orca and Nimbalyst use the MIT license. Google Antigravity has a $0 individual plan. Agentastic is free but closed source and runs only on macOS.

What is the best agentic IDE in 2026?#

It depends on how you work. Cursor and Zed lead for hands-on editing, Claude Code Desktop and the Codex app are simplest if you use one provider, and Agentastic fits Mac developers running many different CLI agents in isolated worktrees. See the best agentic IDE comparison for the ranked list.