AI Tools — Installing and Updating

By terje

2026-07-19

AI Tools — Installing and Updating

This page covers how to install and update the AI coding tools Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, OpenAI Codex CLI, and Cursor CLI (Agent).

All npm-based tools require Node.js 22 or later.

Quick links: Current Version · Installing · Updating · Checking Usage

Current Version

claude --version
copilot --version
codex --version
agent --version

Installing

Claude Code

Claude Code is Anthropic’s official CLI. Install it globally via npm:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

On first run it will open a browser window and ask you to authenticate with your Anthropic account.

GitHub Copilot CLI

GitHub Copilot CLI brings Copilot assistance to the terminal. Install it globally via npm:

npm install -g @github/copilot

On first launch, run /login and follow the prompts to authenticate with your GitHub account.

As an alternative, if you have the GitHub CLI (gh) installed, you can also install and run it through that:

gh copilot

OpenAI Codex CLI

OpenAI Codex CLI is a terminal-native coding agent. Install it globally via npm:

npm install -g @openai/codex

Note: Use @openai/codex, not codex — the unscoped codex package on npm is an unrelated 2012 project.

Cursor CLI (Agent)

Cursor CLI runs the Cursor agent headlessly from the terminal. It is installed via a shell script, not npm:

curl https://cursor.com/install -fsSL | bash

Note: On Windows, set up WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) before running this command, as the tooling assumes a Unix-like environment.

After installation the primary command is agent. The older cursor-agent alias still works.

Updating

Claude Code

npm update -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Note: Claude Code’s updater often needs to run an install script as part of the update. If you hit a prompt or failure related to that, use the full form instead:
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code@latest --allow-scripts=@anthropic-ai/claude-code
To avoid typing this every time, allow the script once and go back to the short form:
npm config set allow-scripts=@anthropic-ai/claude-code --location=user

GitHub Copilot CLI

npm update -g @github/copilot

OpenAI Codex CLI

npm update -g @openai/codex

Cursor CLI (Agent)

Re-run the install script — it will replace the existing installation with the latest version:

curl https://cursor.com/install -fsSL | bash

Checking Usage

Each tool has both a web dashboard and an in-CLI command for checking how much of your monthly quota remains.

Tool	Web dashboard	In-CLI check
Claude Code	claude.ai/settings/usage	`/usage` (plan limits, 5-hour + weekly rate-limit status), `/status`
GitHub Copilot CLI	github.com/settings/copilot → Billing & Licensing → Usage by product → Copilot	`/usage` (current session’s consumption)
OpenAI Codex CLI	chatgpt.com/codex/pricing	`/status` (remaining tokens for the 5-hour and weekly windows)
Cursor CLI (Agent)	cursor.com/settings	—

Note: For Claude Code and Codex CLI, the in-CLI /status (or /usage) command is more reliable than the web dashboard for seeing where you stand right now — the dashboards tend to show historical totals and can lag by a few minutes. GitHub Copilot’s premium request usage resets on the 1st of each month at 00:00 UTC. Cursor’s usage dashboard has been reported to render blank for some users — a known issue, not misconfiguration on your end.