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Warp

An agentic development environment born out of the terminal, with a mostly AGPL client and a proprietary server.Reference profileOpen source

About Warp

Warp is an agentic development environment born out of the terminal: a terminal for macOS, Linux and Windows with its own coding agent that also hosts CLI agents such as Claude Code and Codex. Since April 28, 2026 the client is AGPL v3, with two UI crates under MIT; the server, the Warp Drive backend and the Oz cloud agent orchestrator are proprietary. Monthly: Free $0, Build $20/mo, Max $200/mo, Business $50/user/mo (Warp pricing page, read 2026-10-26). The changelog ships weekly; as of 2026-10-26 the latest entry is 2026.10.15; the last main-branch commit landed October 23, 07:21 (UTC+8).

EditorialUpdated 10 min read

What it is

Warp's GitHub description calls it "an agentic development environment, born out of the terminal." First of all it is a desktop terminal, written in Rust with its own rendering, that groups each command and its output into a "block" you can select and copy on its own, with an input area that edits like a code editor. On top of that terminal Warp ships its own coding agent, which reads code, edits files and runs commands, and it recognizes and hosts third-party CLI agents such as Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI.

As of 2026-10-26 the site navigation lists three product lines. Warp Terminal is the desktop terminal above. Warp Agent CLI is described as a coding agent that runs in any terminal, sharing model and inference settings with the desktop app. Warp Factories is infrastructure for running fleets of coding agents: agents, automations, runners, skills, webhooks, scorers and benchmarks are defined "as code" in a repository, any model or harness can plug in, and access is by early-access request. Cloud agents are orchestrated by a service called Oz, which is not open source.

On the company side, the official blog is signed by founder Zach Lloyd. A June 21, 2023 post announced a $50M Series B led by Sequoia Capital, alongside the team collaboration feature Warp Drive. On April 28, 2026 Warp open-sourced the client; the announcement says Warp is "used by nearly a million active developers", a figure the company reports itself. The README names OpenAI as the founding sponsor of the new open-source repository.

The download page is specific about platforms: macOS 10.14 and later; Linux as .deb, .rpm, .tar.zst and AppImage packages, each for x64 and ARM64; Windows 10 and 11, also for x64 and ARM64. A Preview build is offered alongside the stable release.

Warp is an agentic development environment, born out of the terminal.

warpdotdev/warp README

Core capabilities

The terminal itself. Block output stops long logs from becoming one undifferentiated scroll: each command's output is its own block that can be selected and copied separately. The input area lets you edit long commands as in an editor. Warp Drive stores workflows, notebooks and environment variables and shares them across a team; Drive is capped on the Free plan and unlimited from Build up.

The built-in agent and models. The Warp pricing page (read 2026-10-26) lists models including Fable 5, Claude Opus 5, GPT-5.6, Gemini 3.1 Pro, GLM 5.2 and Kimi K3. Paid plans include a monthly agent-usage allowance drawn down at each model's API rates; the Free plan offers pay-as-you-go usage or bring-your-own inference. The repository FAQ says existing Codex or Claude subscriptions cannot drive Warp's built-in agent, because that agent's harness runs on Warp's servers; the FAQ also says Warp plans to support ACP.

Third-party agents. The FAQ says Warp supports CLI agents such as Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI, and the changelog keeps adding to this: the October 7 entry put Kiro CLI in the third-party agent toolbar and began showing Codex cache-write token counts; the October 15 entry recognizes Muse Code as a CLI agent; earlier entries added Mistral Vibe recognition and inline images and Mermaid diagrams in agent output. The last commit on the main branch belongs to the same thread, adding tool names and server identity to MCP tool calls under ACP.

Cloud agents. The Free plan includes a limited cloud-agent allowance and can run any agent harness in the cloud, a feature marked beta. The October 15 entry lets Oz cloud agents save handoff snapshots so work can pass between a laptop and the cloud. Enterprise can self-host cloud agents, and cross-harness agent memory is a research preview.

Release cadence. The changelog says updates ship weekly, typically on Thursdays. As of 2026-10-26 the latest entry is 2026.10.15, version v0.2026.10.14.08.27, and the page was last updated October 20. That entry also added ⌘+E or Ctrl+E to toggle Markdown between rendered and raw views. The August 25 entry gave Warp Agent CLI a /usage command for viewing usage.

Who it's for / Not for

Good fit: developers who want Warp's own agent and third-party agents such as Claude Code and Codex in one terminal; teams that work through long logs and share workflows and notebooks; companies that need SAML SSO, admin data controls and their own model keys, on Business or Enterprise; contributors willing to read the client source and send patches.

Not a fit: anyone who needs a fully offline terminal that sends no telemetry to the vendor, since the Free plan requires telemetry for AI features; people who want a light terminal with no account and no cloud dependency, for whom Ghostty or iTerm2 is closer; organizations that cannot accept the data-use clause in the terms of service; users hoping to drive the built-in agent with an existing Claude or Codex subscription, which the FAQ says is not supported.

How it compares

Against traditional terminals. iTerm2 is macOS-only and GPL-2.0; Ghostty is an MIT-licensed cross-platform terminal with 62,584 GitHub stars on 2026-10-26, against 65,694 for the Warp repository the same day. Neither ships an agent or needs an account; both focus on speed, native feel and config files. Warp makes the opposite trade: more interface and features, with accounts, cloud sync and agents tied to Warp's servers.

Against other "AI terminals". Wave Terminal is Apache-2.0 with 22,593 stars on 2026-10-26 and likewise puts the terminal, file previews and AI chat in one window. Inference: Warp differs by being more commercial, with its own agent, usage allowances billed at API rates, team and enterprise features, and agent-fleet infrastructure in Factories.

Against running a CLI agent directly. The Claude pricing page (read 2026-10-26) lists Pro at $20/mo billed monthly. Billed annually, Pro works out to $17/mo. Max starts at $100/mo. Developers who only use Claude Code or Codex can run them in any terminal; Warp's value is putting several vendors' agents in one interface, plus block output, Drive and cloud runs. Inference: for someone using a single agent with no extra demands on the terminal, Warp adds little.

Getting started

Setup. On macOS use brew install --cask warp, on Windows winget install Warp.Warp, and on Linux pick the matching package from the download page. To try new features first, use the Preview build instead.

Read the privacy settings early. Warp's privacy documentation says telemetry must be on to use AI features on the Free plan, while paid plans can opt out; Secret Redaction ships disabled and has to be switched on; the docs include a full table of telemetry events, and the in-app Network Log shows the requests Warp sends. Teams handling production credentials should adjust these options right after first sign-in.

Contributing. Contributors sign a CLA first. Per the FAQ, PRs are reviewed automatically by the Oz agent and then by a maintainer for that area; /warp-agent-review in a PR requests another agent review, up to 3 times per PR. The FAQ also says contributed code is not used to train models. The repository includes instruction files written for coding agents; when reading the source, treat them as project documentation.

Pricing & license

Warp pricing page (read 2026-10-26), monthly prices: Free is $0, with Warp Agent CLI, pay-as-you-go agent usage, bring-your-own inference, limited cloud agents and limited Drive; Build is $20/mo with $20 of agent usage each month; Max is $200/mo with 10 times Build's usage; Business is $50/user/mo for up to 25 seats, with $20 of usage per seat, SAML SSO, your own API keys and custom inference endpoints; Enterprise is quoted, with unlimited seats, your own models and self-hosted cloud agents.

Annual prices on the same page: Build $18/mo, Max $180/mo, Business $45/user/mo. The Factories page has its own pricing: Pay as you go is $0 with usage billed at 20% above API rates; Build is $20/mo with usage at API rates and access to the Claude Code and Codex harnesses; Business is $50/user/mo; Enterprise is quoted and supports self-hosted workers. These are monthly prices.

License. The client is open source under AGPL v3, and the two UI crates warpui_core and warpui are MIT; the server, Warp Drive backend and Oz orchestration are proprietary. The FAQ says using Warp at a company does not trigger AGPL obligations, which apply only if you modify the client and distribute or host it for others; the FAQ gives no timeline for opening the server.

Risks & limits

Security advisories. On June 10, 03:34–03:48 (UTC+8) the repository published 10 security advisories, 9 high and 1 medium. The high-severity issues include Markdown notebook links that may open local executables, CVE-2026-48704; command injection through Git branch names in the branch selector, CVE-2026-48719; env-var prefixes that let denylisted commands auto-execute, CVE-2026-48721; terminal output reaching the local clipboard via OSC 52, CVE-2026-48725; and command injection when opening terminal links from WSL, CVE-2026-54699. The first nine are fixed in v0.2026.05.06.15.42.stable_01 and the WSL issue in v0.2026.05.13.09.15.stable_01. Recommendation: make sure your version is no older than those two.

Data use. Section 2.7 of Warp's terms of service, last modified October 7, 2025, lets Warp use data, including Licensee Data, for analytics and to train its own algorithms and models. The pricing page states Zero Data Retention with contracted model providers and claims SOC 2 compliance; the FAQ says contributions are not used for training. These cover different scopes, and the terms govern Warp's own use of data. Inference: data-sensitive teams should ask Warp in writing how section 2.7 applies under Business and Enterprise contracts before buying.

Proprietary dependencies. An open client does not mean the app works without Warp's services: the built-in agent's harness, account sign-in, Drive sync and cloud agents all sit on the proprietary server. If the service changes prices or features, users can accept or migrate. Maintainer load is also heavy, with 3,974 open issues and 1,515 open PRs on 2026-10-26.

The terms of service restrict use in some regions and for some purposes; see the terms for details.

How it got here

Beginnings. The warpdotdev/warp repository was created on July 9, 2021 02:48 (UTC+8) and was long used to collect user feedback. On April 6, 2022 00:40 (UTC+8), Warp posted "Show HN: Warp, a Rust-based terminal" on Hacker News, which has 946 points and 726 comments as of 2026-10-26. On June 3, 2022 02:39 (UTC+8), a LICENSE file added to the repository stated that Warp was closed source and that whether and how to open it was still under discussion.

Expansion. On June 21, 2023, Warp announced a $50M Series B led by Sequoia Capital and launched Warp Drive, bringing team collaboration to the terminal. The product's focus then shifted from "a better terminal" toward agents: first an AI assistant in the terminal, then its own coding agent, support for third-party CLI agents, and cloud agents and Factories.

Open source. On April 28, 2026, Warp announced the open-source release; the first code commit, "Initial public release of Warp.", carries an author time of April 28, 21:40 (UTC+8). The Hacker News discussion has 373 points as of 2026-10-26. The client was opened while the server stayed proprietary, and the README lists OpenAI as founding sponsor. On June 10 the repository published the 10 security advisories described above.

Activity today. The last commit on the main branch landed October 23, 2026, 07:21 (UTC+8), commit 1e6c3ae. In the 30 days from September 26 to October 25, 2026, 151 PRs were merged, counted in UTC. As of 2026-10-26, the repository had 65,694 stars, 5,701 forks and 171 contributor accounts including bots; the most commits come from a bot account with 675, followed by two personal accounts with 184 and 177.

Our verdict

Recommendation: individual developers who want several coding agents in one terminal can start on the Free plan, turn off telemetry options they do not need, switch on Secret Redaction, and then decide whether Build is worth it. Teams should read section 2.7 of the terms before buying and make sure the client is no older than the fixed versions in the security advisories.

Inference: open-sourcing the client makes it reviewable and modifiable, but the core value still lives on the proprietary server, so Warp is better seen as a commercial service with an open-source client as its front door than as an open terminal you fully control. For people who only need a terminal, projects like Ghostty and iTerm2 are lighter; for teams that want to manage several vendors' agents together and run them in batches in the cloud, Warp currently offers a fairly complete package.

Not a fit: environments with hard requirements for offline use or keeping data on the machine should not adopt it as the main terminal until Warp publishes a timeline for opening the server or offers a fully local mode.

Why it matters

Warp rebuilds the terminal as a modern development environment with built-in AI agents; its client source code is open (AGPL-3.0, with some components under MIT).

Sources

Official

  1. warpdotdev/warp: Warp is an agentic development environment, born out of the terminalGitHub · Accessed Oct 26, 2026
  2. warp/README.md · warpdotdev/warpGitHub · Accessed Oct 26, 2026
  3. warp/FAQ.md · warpdotdev/warpGitHub · Accessed Oct 26, 2026
  4. warp/LICENSE-AGPL · warpdotdev/warpGitHub · Accessed Oct 26, 2026
  5. Commits · warpdotdev/warp (master)GitHub · Accessed Oct 26, 2026
  6. Project ACP MCP tool calls with their tool name, server identity, and late input · warpdotdev/warp@1e6c3aeGitHub · Accessed Oct 26, 2026
  7. Initial public release of Warp. · warpdotdev/warp@0dbd3d5GitHub · Accessed Oct 26, 2026
  8. Create LICENSE (#1307) · warpdotdev/warp@cbb4bc3GitHub · Accessed Oct 26, 2026

Updates & reading

Discussion

Warp is now open-source

But the tl;dr is that I actually think we can build a better product, more quickly if we build it with our community + agents.

WarpHacker NewsRead story