Jules vs Kimi Code CLI

Jules

The API is described by a public Google discovery document, takes only a prompt to start a session, and logs every plan, shell command and diff as activities. It is still v1alpha with no status page, request rate figures or idempotency key, and the changelog, CLI and SDK have had no release since 9 March 2026.

Kimi Code CLI

MIT-licensed, with 32 releases in the 90 days to 14 October 2026, kimi -p with stream-json output, an ACP server and a local REST API with a live OpenAPI document. Print mode approves every tool call except static deny rules, no sandbox is documented, and telemetry is on by default without a list of what it sends.

Jules

1. Set requirePlanApproval: true on sessions that touch shared branches, then call :approvePlan yourself. API sessions otherwise run their plan without review
2. Session creation has no request ID. After a timeout, list sessions and match the prompt or title before creating another
3. Poll activities with a create_time filter and cache them. Activities never change once written
4. Read the request fields from the discovery document at https://jules.googleapis.com/$discovery/rest?version=v1alpha. The field tables on jules.google render empty
5. Budget against the daily task quota of 15, 100 or 300 by plan. New sessions are refused until the rolling 24 hours reset

Kimi Code CLI

1. kimi -p approves every tool call. Add [[permission.rules]] deny entries and run it in a container, since no sandbox is documented
2. Set KIMI_LOOP_MAX_STEPS_PER_TURN for unattended runs. Steps per turn are unlimited by default
3. Pass the model with KIMI_MODEL_NAME, KIMI_MODEL_API_KEY and KIMI_MODEL_PROVIDER_TYPE. OPENAI_API_KEY or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in the shell is ignored otherwise
4. Set KIMI_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 and use 0.41.0 or later, since earlier print-mode runs ignored it
5. Install @moonshot-ai/kimi-code or the kimi-code formula. The kimi-cli and kimi-code packages on PyPI are the archived Python CLI