Coding agent (CLI) · Charmbracelet
Crush
Charm's terminal coding agent with a polished TUI, per-project sessions, LSP context, MCP servers over http, stdio and sse, and mid-session model switching. Source-available under FSL, not open source.
Crush review
Crush is a terminal coding agent from Charmbracelet with a text interface, MCP and LSP support. It is free to use but not open source: the licence is FSL-1.1-MIT, which is source-available. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux. We read the vendor's repository in October 2026. We did not run an independent test.
Who it is for
Terminal users who like Charm's interface style and want a CLI coding agent with MCP and LSP. It suits personal or internal use, with a choice of cloud or local models.
What stands out
Crush keeps sessions per project and lets you switch model mid-session. It adds LSP context for extra code understanding. MCP servers connect over stdio, HTTP and SSE, with OAuth support. Install with `brew install charmbracelet/tap/crush`, npm, winget, Scoop, apt or yum, Nix, or `go install`. The README also lists Android and the BSDs. On Windows it runs through PowerShell or WSL.
`crush run` executes one non-interactive prompt and accepts piped stdin, so it fits shell scripts. The README does not describe this; we read it in the repository's source. Each tool asks permission, with allow and deny lists. `--yolo` skips the prompts and is opt-in.
Crush ships a model list covering Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, Bedrock, Azure, Groq and others. It also takes any OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible API, including Ollama, llama.cpp and LM Studio.
Price and licence
The tool is free to use, checked on 28 October 2026. The licence is the Functional Source License 1.1 with an MIT future licence. It bars competing commercial use. It is not OSI-approved, so Crush is not open source. Each release converts to MIT after two years. GitHub shows the licence as "Other".
Model cost comes from your own provider keys, local models, or Charm's optional Hyper provider. The README describes Hyper as subscription-based. Its FAQ snippet puts one credit at about 5 cents. We did not find tier prices.
Where it falls short
- The licence blocks competing commercial use, so you cannot embed or resell it in a rival product.
- It is still 0.x. The version we saw was v0.98.2, released 23 October 2026.
- The CLI collects pseudonymous usage metrics unless you set `CRUSH_DISABLE_METRICS=1`.
- The README mentions no sandbox or subagent feature.
- No separate Crush website exists. The charm.land address redirects to the GitHub repository.
Alternatives
If you need an OSI-approved licence, see Claude Code alternatives. Open-source options include OpenCode and Goose.
Facts: platforms, price and licence
- platforms
- macOSWindowsLinuxREADME also lists Android, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD. Windows via PowerShell or WSL. Installed via Homebrew, npm, winget, Scoop, apt/yum, Nix or `go install`. Version 0.x. charm.land/crush redirects to the GitHub repo, so no separate marketing site was found.
- price
- FreeThe Crush tool is free to use (FSL-1.1-MIT, seen 2026-10-28). Model cost comes from your provider keys, local models, or Charm's own optional Hyper provider, which README describes as subscription-based (credits at about 5 cents each per hyper.charm.land FAQ; tier prices not found).
- source
- ProprietaryLicence: FSL-1.1-MIT (source-available, converts to MIT later)
- github
- charmbracelet/crush 28.8k stars, seen 2026-10-28
Crush features
- ✓ yes MCP
- ? not verified Multi-agent
- ✓ yes Headless / CI
- ? not verified Sandbox
- ✓ yes Local models
- ✓ yes Your own API key
- ? not verified Git worktrees
- ? not verified SSH
✓ documented · – absent or not in its feature list · ? not verified
Crush strengths
- MCP over stdio, HTTP and SSE with OAuth support, plus LSP integration for extra code context.
- `crush run` executes a single non-interactive prompt and accepts piped stdin, so it fits shell scripts.
- Per-tool permission prompts with allow/deny lists; `--yolo` is opt-in.
- Runs on a wide set of OSes and supports local model servers (Ollama, llama.cpp, LM Studio).
Crush weak points
- License is FSL-1.1-MIT, which bars competing commercial use and is not OSI-approved; each release converts to MIT only after two years.
- Still 0.x versioning (v0.98.2) and the CLI collects pseudonymous usage metrics unless CRUSH_DISABLE_METRICS=1 is set.
- No sandbox or subagent feature mentioned in the README.
- Official Hyper provider is a separate paid subscription; no standalone Crush website found.
Who Crush is for
- best for
- Terminal users who like Charm's TUI style and want MCP and LSP support with a choice of cloud or local models for personal or internal use.
- look elsewhere if
- Anyone who needs an OSI-approved open source license, e.g. to embed or resell it in a competing product.
Lists that include Crush
Sources and what we could not verify
Checked 2026-10-28. Prices and features change; the vendor's page is the authority.
- github.com/charmbracelet/crush — README: features, platforms, install, providers, MCP, permissions, yolo, metrics, Hyper
- github.com/charmbracelet/crush/blob/main/LICENSE.md — FSL-1.1-MIT text, competing-use restriction, MIT after second anniversary; earlier MIT portion by Kujtim Hoxha
- github.com/charmbracelet/crush/blob/main/internal/cmd/run.go — crush run: single non-interactive prompt, stdin pipe
- github.com/charmbracelet/crush/releases — v0.98.2, 2026-10-23
- hyper.charm.land/faq — Hyper uses credits, 1 credit about 5 cents (via search snippet; tier prices not seen)
Not verified
- github license field reports 'Other' (NOASSERTION); the LICENSE file itself is FSL-1.1-MIT, with a trailing MIT block for code by Kujtim Hoxha dated 2025-03-21 to 2025-05-30
- headless: confirmed from the `crush run` help text in the repo source, the README itself does not describe it
- Hyper subscription tier prices not found (hyper.charm.land fetch returned no content); only the credit unit from the FAQ snippet
- sandbox / multi_agent / git_worktrees not mentioned in README (null)