Chief + Aider: Better Together

At a glance

What is Chief?

Chief is an AI-native agent manager. It sits above coding agents like Claude Code and Codex and handles everything between "here's what I want" and "here's the shipped result" — planning what to build, figuring out what comes next, dispatching agents across your portfolio, and reviewing output before it ships.

If you use Aider, you already think the way Chief works: you describe a change in plain language, an agent edits the code, and git keeps the history clean. Chief takes that loop and runs it for you — across every project you manage, with the next steps planned before you ask.

Chief uses a BYOA (bring-your-own-agent) model. You connect the coding agents you already pay for — Claude Code, Codex, Qwen Code, OpenCode, or Kimi Code — and Chief dispatches them. Aider stays in your terminal for the sessions you want to drive yourself.

How Chief and Aider fit together

1. Aider for the conversation; Chief for the delegation

Aider shines when you want to be in the loop: add a couple of files to the chat, describe the change, read the diff, iterate. It's fast, precise, and entirely under your control.

Chief handles the work you'd rather not drive turn by turn. Give it a goal and it plans the milestones, dispatches a coding agent for each one, and reviews the result against acceptance criteria. Keep Aider for the hands-on sessions; let Chief run the backlog.

2. Plan complex goals once, execute in one shot

In Aider, a big feature is a sequence of focused chats — you decide the order, choose which files to add each time, and carry the context between sessions.

Chief provides structured one-shot execution. Give it "implement Stripe billing with usage metering and team plans" and Chief decomposes it into dependency-aware milestones — the schema migration before the API endpoints, the webhook handler before the billing page. Each milestone has acceptance criteria and a review gate. You approve the plan once; Chief executes the entire sequence with checkpoints you can inspect.

3. Proactive management between sessions

Aider waits for your next message. Close the terminal and the project stops moving.

Chief is proactive. It analyzes project state, understands what's been completed, what's blocked, and what's ready to start — then proposes the next milestones. When you open your terminal in the morning, Chief has already figured out what should happen next.

4. Scale beyond one repository

Aider works on one repository per session. Five projects means five terminals and five contexts in your head, with no view of what's in flight anywhere else.

Chief manages agents across all your projects simultaneously. Dispatch Claude Code to three repos and Codex to two more, and see all progress in one dashboard. Chief tracks what's in flight everywhere and sequences cross-project dependencies. Your output multiplies with each project you add — without multiplying your management overhead.

5. Keep choosing the right model for the job

Aider users are used to picking the model that fits the task and paying only for what they use. Chief keeps that flexibility at the agent level: route Claude Code, Codex, Qwen Code, or Kimi Code to the milestones each handles best, and use OpenCode to reach Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, Mistral, xAI, Moonshot, and Meta models with your own credentials. Chief manages all of them from one interface.

6. Quality gates at scale

Every Aider session ends with you reading the diff. At one project that's the right call. At five projects with multiple agents running, you become the review bottleneck.

Chief reviews agent output against acceptance criteria before surfacing results to you. It checks for regressions, validates the implementation, and flags issues. You handle the decisions that need human judgment, not the first-pass quality checks.

When to add Chief

Add Chief to your Aider workflow when:

• You want to scale across projects. Chief lets you manage agents across your entire portfolio from one dashboard — not five terminal sessions.
• You want one-shot execution of complex goals. Give Chief a goal, approve the plan, and it executes the full milestone sequence with checkpoints and review gates.
• You want progress while you're away. Chief figures out what to work on next and keeps agents moving between your sessions.
• You want to keep model flexibility. Route the right agent and model to each milestone, managed from a single interface.
• You're on a team. Unified visibility shows what every agent is doing across every project.
• You want quality gates at scale. Chief reviews agent output against acceptance criteria before it hits your inbox.

Chief doesn't replace Aider — it runs the same describe-edit-commit loop at portfolio scale, so your terminal time goes to the sessions that need you.

Getting started in 5 minutes

Already using Aider? Adding Chief takes minutes.

1. Sign up for Chief — free trial, no credit card.
2. Connect your coding agents — Claude Code, Codex, Qwen Code, OpenCode, or Kimi Code via BYOA. No additional agent costs.
3. Import a project — give Chief a GitHub repo URL. It builds project context automatically.
4. Set a goal — describe what you want accomplished in plain language.
5. Approve the plan — Chief proposes milestones with acceptance criteria. Review and approve.
6. Watch it execute — Chief dispatches agents with the right context, runs the full plan, and reviews the output. The commits land on your machine, right where your Aider history already lives.

Your Aider workflow stays the same — Chief just takes the delegated work off your plate.

FAQ

Is Chief a replacement for Aider?

No. Aider is a pair programmer you drive turn by turn; Chief manages coding agents across your portfolio. Many developers keep Aider for interactive sessions and use Chief for everything they want to delegate.

Does Chief dispatch Aider?

Not today. Chief dispatches Claude Code, Codex, Qwen Code, OpenCode, and Kimi Code through its BYOA model. Aider stays in your terminal for the sessions you run yourself.

I chose Aider because it's open source. Does Chief lock me in?

Chief is a hosted service, but it never owns your agents or your code. Agents run on your own machine with your own subscriptions, and their work lands as ordinary git commits. If you stop using Chief, your repositories and your tools are exactly as you left them.

Can I keep paying per token instead of buying subscriptions?

Yes. Chief's OpenCode support lets you bring your own API credentials for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, Mistral, xAI, Moonshot, and Meta models — the same pay-as-you-go approach many Aider users prefer.

How does Chief decide what to work on next?

Chief maintains persistent project context — completed milestones, in-flight work, project goals, codebase state. It uses this context to proactively propose the next milestones. You approve or redirect; Chief drives the pace.

Can I still use Aider directly for ad-hoc tasks?

Absolutely. Chief manages background agent work — it doesn't take over your terminal. Use Aider interactively anytime, and use Chief for the work you want to delegate.

Does Chief work with any editor?

Chief is editor-agnostic. It dispatches coding agents in the background — your editor choice doesn't affect Chief, just as it doesn't affect Aider.