What is a cloud-based AI coding agent?

A cloud-based AI coding agent is an AI developer tool that runs its models remotely instead of running the AI locally on your computer.

The basic idea is similar to other AI coding agents: you give the agent a task, it can inspect your project, read files, modify code, run commands, test changes and iterate when something goes wrong.

The main difference is where the AI runs.

With a local setup, your own machine has to handle the model. With a cloud-based agent, the inference happens on remote servers and your computer mainly acts as the interface.

We've been building Clixad around this approach.

Clixad is a cloud-based AI coding agent for the terminal. You don't need a powerful GPU or your own API key because the models run in the cloud.

We're also experimenting with a different way of paying for the inference. Instead of requiring a monthly subscription, users get free credits and can earn additional credits through advertiser-funded offers, forms and surveys.

Recently, we've also made our five cheapest models free to use within daily limits, so people can start AI coding without immediately spending credits.

For beginners, students, hobby developers and occasional vibe coders, a cloud-based AI coding agent can remove two common barriers at once: expensive hardware and complicated API setup.

It doesn't make AI inference free. It just moves the infrastructure to the cloud and changes how users access it.

That's the part we're exploring with Clixad: can cloud-based AI coding make it easier for more people to start building with AI?