Goose — AI Developer Agent by Block

What is Goose?

Goose is an open-source AI developer agent created by Block (the company behind Square and Cash App). It runs in your terminal, understands your project context, and can write code, run tests, manage git, and interact with external services through extensible toolkits and MCP servers.

Answer-Ready: Goose is an open-source AI developer agent by Block that automates coding tasks in your terminal. It features extensible toolkits, session memory, MCP server support, and works with Claude, GPT, and local models. 10k+ GitHub stars.

Best for: Developers who want an open-source terminal AI agent with enterprise backing. Works with: Claude, GPT-4o, Gemini, Ollama. Setup time: Under 2 minutes.

Core Features

1. Extensible Toolkits

Goose ships with built-in toolkits and supports custom ones:

Built-in toolkits:
- developer: File operations, code editing, git
- screen: Screenshot and UI interaction
- repo-context: Codebase understanding
- jira: Issue tracking integration
- github: PR and issue management

2. MCP Server Support

# ~/.config/goose/profiles.yaml
default:
  provider: anthropic
  model: claude-sonnet-4-20250514
  mcpServers:
    memory:
      command: npx
      args: ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-memory"]
    github:
      command: npx
      args: ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"]

3. Session Memory

Goose remembers context within and across sessions:

goose session start          # New session
goose session resume         # Resume last session
goose session list           # List all sessions

4. Profile System

Configure different profiles for different projects:

# ~/.config/goose/profiles.yaml
frontend:
  provider: anthropic
  model: claude-sonnet-4-20250514
  toolkits: [developer, screen]

backend:
  provider: openai
  model: gpt-4o
  toolkits: [developer, repo-context, jira]

5. Multi-Provider Support

Example Session

$ goose session start
Goose> Fix the failing tests in src/auth/
  Reading test output... 3 failures found
  Analyzing src/auth/middleware.ts
  Fixing token validation logic
  Running tests... All 47 tests passing
  Committing: "fix: correct JWT token validation in auth middleware"

FAQ

Q: How does Goose compare to Claude Code? A: Both are terminal AI agents. Goose is open-source with a toolkit plugin system. Claude Code has deeper Claude integration and broader tool access. They serve similar use cases.

Q: Is it production-ready? A: Yes, built and used internally by Block (a Fortune 500 company). Active open-source development.

Q: Can I extend it with custom tools? A: Yes, via custom toolkits (Python plugins) or MCP servers.