Kimi Code CLI Cheatsheet - Moonshot Terminal AI Coding Agent

Kimi Code CLI is an agent that ships the model wiring with the binary: installed, it works, with no base_url to fill in, no SDK to configure, no PATH juggling, and little risk of colliding with global modules. That turnkey state suits two kinds of people - developers already inside the Kimi ecosystem, and anyone who simply wants a working terminal agent with zero setup. It is not closed, though: switching to another vendor's model means editing a user-level config file with the corresponding API key, with no need to migrate your workflow. This sheet covers installation and launch, interactive and one-shot execution, sessions and models, and subcommands and operations. A sensible order is to confirm one interactive session works, then learn single-shot execution for scripts, and only then handle session resumption and model switching. One practice is worth doing early: generating a project conventions file before a large change, so the agent starts work already knowing the repository's naming and layout habits - cheaper than correcting its style afterwards.