Getting Started with EditLess

March 24, 2026 · View on GitHub

Edit less, effortless.

New to Vibe Coding?

If you're new to AI-assisted development, it can feel overwhelming — dozens of tools, frameworks, and agent systems competing for your attention. Here's the simplest path in:

Start with Squad. Squad makes managing AI agent teams easy and fun. It gives your agents names, roles, and a shared memory so they collaborate like a real team. EditLess was designed to work beautifully with Squad from day one.

Why Squad?

  • Friendly on-ramp — Squad handles team setup, role assignment, and context sharing so you can focus on what to build, not how to configure agents
  • Works with any CLI — Copilot CLI, Claude Code, or any agent that runs in a terminal
  • Built-in memory — agents share decisions, history, and skills across sessions
  • Progressive complexity — start simple, add sophistication as you learn

Quick Start

Add Squad from EditLess (easiest path):

  1. Open your project in VS Code with EditLess installed
  2. Click the EditLess icon in the sidebar
  3. Click "Add Squad" — EditLess handles the rest
  4. Your team appears automatically

See Adding Agents & Squads (coming soon) for step-by-step guidance.

Alternative: CLI install

If you prefer the command line:

# Install Squad CLI
dotnet tool install -g Squad

# Create a team in your project
squad init

EditLess auto-discovers Squad teams by scanning for .squad/ (or .ai-team/) directories. No configuration needed.

Don't Need Squad?

Squad is optional. EditLess also supports standalone agent files. Out of the box, it auto-discovers agents from workspace .github/agents/, workspace .copilot/agents/, personal ~/.copilot/agents/, and fallback .agent.md files in supported root locations. See docs/agent-file-format.md for the exact support matrix.

Not every project needs a full team framework — start simple and adopt Squad when it makes sense for your workflow.

  • Handy — A companion tool for agent workflow automation
  • SquadUI — Visualize team state, manage skills, and monitor squad activity

The EditLess Philosophy

EditLess is built on a simple idea: you shouldn't need to edit code to build software.

Plan, delegate, and review. That's the loop. Your AI agents write the code, run the tests, create the PRs. You make the decisions. Think of yourself as the engineering manager of a team that happens to be AI.

"Give yourself a promotion — manage your teams of AI agents."