AFT: A Sensorimotor Cortex for Coding Agents with IDE and OS Capabilities

Summary

AFT provides coding agents with advanced IDE and OS capabilities, acting as a sensorimotor cortex for perception and action within a codebase. It enhances agent productivity and reduces token usage by offering structured code perception, precise symbol-aware edits, and background task management. Part of the CortexKit family, AFT integrates with platforms like OpenCode and Pi to elevate agent interaction with code.

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Introduction

AFT, part of the CortexKit family, provides coding agents with a sophisticated IDE and OS environment. It acts as a "sensorimotor cortex," bridging an agent's reasoning with the codebase by enabling structured perception and precise action. This innovative approach helps agents interact with code more effectively, moving beyond basic read and bash commands to symbol-aware operations and intelligent code navigation.

Why Use AFT and Its Benefits

AFT significantly enhances agent productivity and reduces token usage by offering a rich set of tools categorized into three core functions:

Sensory Cortex: Perceive. This allows agents to "see" the codebase with structure and meaning. Instead of raw text, agents can use tools like aft_outline to view file symbols, aft_zoom to inspect specific functions, and aft_search for semantic code retrieval. aft_callgraph helps trace dependencies, while aft_inspect provides codebase health reports. Fast grep and glob are also included, powered by trigram indexing.
Motor Cortex: Act. AFT empowers agents to "act" on the codebase with precision, manipulating code at the symbol level rather than line numbers. Tools like edit support fuzzy matching and batch edits, write handles file creation with formatting, and apply_patch enables atomic multi-file changes. Advanced features include aft_refactor for workspace-wide symbol moves and aft_import for language-aware import management. ast_grep_search and ast_grep_replace offer structural code manipulation.
Brainstem: Keep it Alive. This autonomic layer manages long-running tasks, noisy output, and recovery, freeing the agent's attention. bash execution includes command rewriting and output compression. Agents can spawn background tasks, manage PTY sessions, and benefit from aft_safety with a per-file undo stack and named checkpoints, ensuring codebase recoverability.

By providing these capabilities, AFT transforms how AI agents interact with code, making them more efficient, accurate, and robust.

Installation

Getting started with AFT is straightforward. Use the following command to set up AFT:

npx @cortexkit/aft@latest setup

This command auto-detects installed harnesses (like OpenCode or Pi) and configures them. For OpenCode, it replaces built-in read, write, edit, and apply_patch with AFT-backed versions and adds the aft_ tool family. For Pi, it replaces read, write, edit, and grep, also adding the aft_ family.

Examples

AFT offers a comprehensive suite of tools for various coding agent tasks. Here are a few examples of its capabilities:

Structured Code Perception:
- aft_outline: Get a structured view of all symbols in a file or directory.
- aft_search: Find code by meaning using hybrid semantic and lexical retrieval.
- aft_inspect: Generate a codebase health report with LSP errors, warnings, and metrics.
Precise Code Manipulation:
- edit: Perform symbol-aware find/replace operations or batch edits across multiple files.
- aft_refactor: Execute workspace-wide symbol moves, function extractions, or inlining.
- aft_import: Add, remove, or organize imports in a language-aware manner.
Robust Environment Management:
- bash: Execute shell commands with output compression and background task support.
- aft_safety: Utilize a per-file undo stack and named checkpoints for recovery.