Agentic Engineering: Working With AI, Not Just Using It — Brendan O'Leary
AI Engineer Europe 2026 · 27:03
AI coding agents and developer tools
Kilo Code builds an open-source platform for developers and engineering teams to plan features, write code, debug problems and review changes with AI agents. Kilo works across VS Code, JetBrains, the CLI and cloud environments, with access to more than 500 models, support for users’ own API keys and local models. Cloud Agents run tasks in isolated environments and return branches and pull requests; Teams adds centralized billing, usage analytics, model controls and role-based access.
The company began in 2025, co-founded by Scott Breitenother, its CEO, and Sid Sijbrandij, also a GitLab co-founder. Kilo started as a Roo Code fork, with ancestry in Cline, and later rebuilt substantial parts around OpenCode. Its engineering approach brings a shared agent core to VS Code, CLI and Cloud Agents, combining parallel tool calls, subagents, isolated worktrees and inline diff review. Persistent sessions let developers carry work between interfaces while retaining context.
By May 2026, the company reported more than 3 million downloads and 40 trillion tokens processed cumulatively. It raised $8 million in seed funding in 2025, led by Cota Capital. Anaconda completed its acquisition of Kilo Code in July 2026, with existing products, plans and support unchanged at the announcement.
AI Engineer Europe 2026 · 27:03
Affiliations reflect their AIE appearances, not necessarily current employment.
O'Leary recommends AGENTS.md and carefully selected MCP servers to manage context, summarized handoffs when sessions degrade, and Kilo Code Ask mode to separate research.
Affiliations reflect each recorded session, not necessarily current employment.