Cline, the Amazing AI Agent

It's a common type of VS Code extension where you give instructions to an AI via chat, but its execution capabilities and the accuracy of the generated code are amazing.

GitHub - cline/cline: Autonomous coding agent right in your IDE, capable of creating/editing files, executing commands, using the browser, and more with your permission every step of the way.

Autonomous coding agent right in your IDE, capable of creating/editing files, executing commands, using the browser, and more with your permission every step of the way. - cline/cline

github.com

It can execute commands in the terminal and automatically fix errors.

And a high percentage of the generated code can be used as is. With Cursor, only about 40% is usable, but with Cline, it produces about 70% that can be used directly.

I'll show you how I use it in actual development. I wanted a floating menu like the one in the image below for this site where I'm writing this article. It's a feature to display only the original text or only the translated text.

So, I provided the following file name and the image, and asked it to create this menu that would smoothly appear only when scrolling up: /web/app/routes/$userName+/page+/$slug+/index.tsx. Then, I received the following response.

After granting permission, it created the following file for me.

This is already quite impressive. With Cursor, you can do something similar with a composer, but Cline can create highly accurate results right from the start. The file location, web/app/routes/$userName+/page+/$slug+/components/FloatingControls.tsx, is exactly where I wanted it. When I pressed save, it started updating other files and began changing things in various places, as shown below.

So, when I instructed it that it was changing too much, it started reading multiple files and then generated the appropriate code.

Of course, it's not perfect yet, so some minor adjustments were necessary, but what was completed is the menu at the bottom right that appears when you scroll up this page a bit. It’s amazing. I think it's the best code-generating agent I've tried so far. It's especially good at generating code that follows the rules of existing code. It makes me feel like I’m in the future. Also, it seems that there is a function where Cline itself starts the server and tests it, but the save button was grayed out and I couldn't press it, as shown in the image below, so I couldn't try it. If this worked, it would be incredibly awesome too.