agent-signals

030. The first start of Gemini CLI, Copilot CLI, Qwen Code and Aider

View as Markdown Open in Claude Open in ChatGPT
Date
2026-10-30
Agents
Gemini CLI, Copilot CLI, Qwen Code, Aider
Measured on
CI runner ubuntu-latest (x64) and CI runner macos-latest (arm64)

Measured

2026-10-30, the scenario scenarios/first-run.sh <agent> <command> in the scenarios workflow (run 41127387845), with a throwaway HOME, no login and no key. Each agent was installed on the runner by the workflow:

Agent Version Install
Gemini CLI 0.66.0 npm @google/gemini-cli
GitHub Copilot CLI 1.0.105 npm @github/copilot
Qwen Code 0.26.4 npm @qwen-code/qwen-code
Aider 0.86.2 pipx aider-chat (Linux only)

Measured on: CI runner ubuntu-latest (x64) and CI runner macos-latest (arm64). Gemini CLI, Copilot CLI and Qwen Code gave the same screens and files on both. The Aider install failed on macOS: pip could not build numpy==1.24.3.

What was measured

  1. Copilot CLI asks "Confirm folder trust" before a login, with "1. Yes", "2. Yes, and remember this folder for future sessions" and "3. No (Esc)". It runs as node .../bin/copilot with a native child .../@github/copilot-<os>-<cpu>/copilot. The child holds ~/.copilot/session-state/<session id>/inuse.<pid>.hold open, where <pid> is its own pid. It also writes ~/.copilot/config.json, open-sessions-state.json and logs/process-<time>-<pid>.log.
  2. Gemini CLI asks "Do you trust the files in this folder?" before a login, with "1. Trust folder ()", "2. Trust parent folder ()" and "3. Don't trust". It runs as two node processes (the second with --max-old-space-size). It writes below ~/.gemini: tmp/<folder name>/, history/<folder name>, projects.json, state.json and installation_id. It held no file below ~/.gemini open.
  3. Qwen Code first shows a choice of the provider ("Choose a built-in provider and connect with an API key", "Custom Provider"). It runs as one node process and holds ~/.qwen/settings.json, model-registry.json and installation_id open.
  4. Aider first asks "No git repo found, create one to track aider's changes (recommended)? (Y)es/(N)o [Yes]:". It runs as a Python process. It writes ~/.aider/analytics.json and caches/versioncheck.

Mechanism

Copilot CLI gives an exact link from a process to its session in the name of a file that the process holds open: the session ID is the folder, and the pid is in the file name.

Gemini CLI and agy (fact 28) both use ~/.gemini. agy keeps its files in ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli and ~/.gemini/config. A reader must not mix them.

Incident

None.

Screens

None. The screens are in the log of the run, not in the corpus.

Not measured

Screens in the corpus that name this fact