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By Lalla Asmaa Alaoui, founder of Mel · Updated
Plain-English guides to the ideas behind Mel, from agentic terminals to teams of AI agents. Each guide gives a short definition, how it works and how the options compare.
Guides
What is an agentic terminal?a terminal where AI agents plan, run commands, edit files and test the work, with you in control.What is an agentic development environment?the kinds of ADE (terminal, editor, cloud), the leading tools, and how to choose.What is a multi-agent terminal?a team of AI agents on one task, and how agent orchestration works.What is an AI terminal?AI shells, AI command lines and terminal coding agents, from suggestions to agents.What is an AI terminal for teams?shared credits, one invoice and the same controls for everyone.What is a coding agent?from coding assistant and AI pair programmer to AI software engineer, with you in control.What is a multi-model coding agent?choosing a model per task, and what model-agnostic means.What is a BYOK AI terminal?bring your own API key, or use hosted credits.What are AI agent approvals?what should need your yes, and how to set approvals well.What is an AI desktop agent?AI that works with your own files, and what local-first means.What is a vibe coding app?building by describing, and how to do it without regret.Claude Code alternativethe honest options for using other models next to Claude.
Compare tools
Looking at a specific tool? See Compare for Mel next to Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, GitHub Copilot and more.
Mel – the agentic terminal · openmel.dev. A multi-agent, multi-model AI terminal for Mac, Windows, Linux and VS Code. Free with your own API key.
Written by
Lalla Asmaa Alaoui
Founder & CEO of Mel
Lalla is a hands-on tech founder, agentic infrastructure architect and the vision behind Mel.
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