Ante

Ante is an open-source agent harness from Antigma Labs with 2,000+ stars on GitHub — a self-contained coding agent that works like Claude Code or Codex, but as a single tiny Rust binary with no dependencies and no model lock-in.

Overview

Most coding agents arrive with an ecosystem attached: a runtime, configuration files, an account. Ante’s pitch is subtraction. One install command gives you a single binary of roughly 13 MB, checksum-verified, with no account and no config file; you pick a model — Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Grok, OpenRouter and more, switchable mid-session — or run local models through built-in llama.cpp integration with no API key and no data leaving your machine. The site claims a fraction of Claude Code’s memory and CPU footprint, a consequence of being written in native Rust rather than a scripting runtime. That leanness is the point: Ante is designed as a “cellular” agent core, light enough to run by the thousands and reliable enough that a fleet self-heals when one instance fails. It is Apache-2.0 licensed and under active development, with updates in October 2026.

Key Features

• Single tiny binary – one install, around 13 MB, zero runtime dependencies.
• Model freedom – switch providers and models mid-session; cloud or local.
• Local models built in – llama.cpp integration means offline, key-free operation.
• No account, no config – start coding in one step instead of a setup guide.
• Native Rust core – markedly lower memory and CPU than runtime-based agents.
• Apache-2.0 licensed – free and open source.

💳 Pricing

Ante is free and open source under the Apache-2.0 license. You bring your own model access — an API key, an existing subscription, or a local model — so your only costs are whatever your chosen provider charges.

Who Is It For

Developers who like what Claude Code-style agents do but want a lighter, self-contained tool they fully control — and teams experimenting with running many agent instances where per-instance footprint actually matters.