Running Roo Code from the command line

[aaronshaf]

I enjoy both Cline and Roo Code. Both seem to do a much better job than Aider at reasoning about my code. Is there any way to script Roo Code tasks from the command line? 🤔

[TomLucidor]

Seconding this but some commands need approval, so how to make it fully auto?

[idanya]

it doesn't have to be full-auto... you could ask for permission approval in the console just like it does with the UI in VSCode. Of course, we can set auto-approval on some commands and it will just continue.
Running it remotely opens the possibility to run tasks in sandbox env, so you could easily just allow everything.

This feature will allow running Roo as a background task or even in CI, automating a lot of tasks.
For example, running it on a server, sending it a task, and waiting for a PR to show in the repo.

I did not dive into the source to find out how all tools are implemented, but if all text manipulations are not dependent on VSCode, it should be relatively straightforward.
However, configuring VSCode Copilot API as the LLM backend will be impossible.

[bertvanbrakel]

It would also allow chaining of agents. I know we have child/parent tasks now, which is very useful. But if we have command line usage, then we could create an mcp tool which calls Roo, and that Roo will be setup with it's own prompts and settings.

This allows it to push work to another Roo instance, and that in turn could push other things. They could bounce between each other etc. You can have a Roo instance for travel related stuff, one for code analysis, another for email handling etc..

All you'd need to get this to work is have the ability to call Roo via the commandline.

It would also integrate with other tooling too

I guess one use case is the OP who might want to replace aider (I work in the terminal, and it would be great to sometimes just have an AI available there), or, this chaining thing. The sandbox idea is also great. Yolo mode

[TomLucidor]

Isn't Aider sun-setting now, so anything that can replace Aider (like OpenHands) would be useful? Would Roo fit this bill?

[KJ7LNW]

supporting Roo from the command line means having benchmarks which is great for CI testing!

See also: #1614

[idanya]

You could create an API extension that will proxy requests from outside vs to the roo extension.
Communicating between extensions is already supported, and you could have your extension listen to an HTTP API or support deep links to initiate it.

[KJ7LNW]

In terms of implementation, mocks could be used to frame up the UI components that would be missing from the command line.