Keep Aider.
Give it your machines.

AI Commander is not an alternative to Aider, Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Windsurf, Continue, or Cline. It is the remote-machine harness those tools plug into over REST or MCP: outbound-only shell, detached jobs that outlive the chat, and file transfer on hardware you already own.

Sibling harness pages: Cursor · Aider · Cline · Continue · Windsurf · Claude Code · Grok · Codex · ChatGPT · Gemini.

Connect Aider (REST — works with stock Aider)

Aider is the popular terminal pair-programmer. Stock Aider does not need MCP: it already runs shell commands, so point it at the AI Commander REST API (same auth model as MCP — session code for the first hour, or a Bearer API key for aliases).

# Status
curl -s https://aicommander.dev/api/v1/status/AIC-7K3P-WX9M-RTBN

# Remote shell (buffered JSON)
curl -s -X POST https://aicommander.dev/api/v1/exec \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"code":"AIC-7K3P-WX9M-RTBN","command":"df -h"}'

Paste an AIC-… code into the chat and ask Aider to check status, run tests on the box that has the repo, or start a detached build. Spec: /openapi.json. Full REST + Agent Skill walkthrough: Connect without MCP.

Optional: MCP on MCP-capable Aider builds

If your Aider build loads MCP servers (community .mcp.json / --mcp-servers-file support), use the same stdio bridge as Cursor and Cline:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aicommander": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@aicommander/mcp"],
      "env": {
        "AICOMMANDER_SERVER": "https://aicommander.dev"
      }
    }
  }
}

First connect may open a one-time browser sign-in (OAuth Dynamic Client Registration). For a code-only first hour without that flow, append ?anonymous=1 to the MCP URL where your client supports it.

What you get that the chat alone cannot

• Remote shell on Linux, macOS, and Windows — by session code or saved alias.
• Detached jobs for builds, training, and headless agents on the box that has the repo.
• Fleet list + GPU facts so Aider picks the right machine before it burns an hour.
• File courier (Pro) for checkpoints and diffs up to 100 MiB.

Not a replacement — a multiplier

FAQ