tenon

tenon

tenon is a terminal coding agent, written in Go. It reads your project, proposes changes and runs commands, under your control.

It is designed for Europe:

• the preconfigured providers are European (Mistral AI, Scaleway, OVHcloud) or local (Ollama, vLLM);
• any data sent outside the EU requires your explicit consent;
• by default, writes, commands and MCP tool calls wait for your approval;
• everything is recorded in a hash-chained, verifiable audit log;
• secrets and some personal data are masked before anything is sent;
• commits that contain code written by the agent can be marked.

Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint works. tenon runs on Linux and macOS.

Installation

Homebrew (macOS, Linux)

brew install tenon-code-eu/tap/tenon

Install script (Linux, macOS)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tenon-code-eu/tenon/main/install.sh | sh

The script installs the latest version in ~/.local/bin (change the directory with TENON_INSTALL_DIR, pin a version with TENON_VERSION=vX.Y.Z). It always verifies the SHA-256 hash of the archive, and the minisign signature if minisign is installed (TENON_REQUIRE_SIGNATURE=1 makes it mandatory). Read it before you run it: install.sh.

With Go

go install github.com/tenon-code-eu/tenon/cmd/tenon@latest

Binaries

Each version published on the GitHub Releases page provides:

• one .tar.gz archive per platform: linux/amd64, linux/arm64, darwin/amd64, darwin/arm64;
• .deb and .rpm packages for Linux (amd64, arm64);
• a SHA256SUMS file, signed with minisign (SHA256SUMS.minisig);
• a CycloneDX SBOM.

Verify the signature with the project's minisign public key, provided at the root of the repository (tenon.pub):

RWR+vfCWjGO42uRKOxNSrKz5afZPCWJf8iJPO04kFdkhLldZHhxo532F

Then verify the hashes:

minisign -Vm SHA256SUMS -p tenon.pub
sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing   # macOS: shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing

Then copy the tenon binary to a directory in your PATH, or install the package:

sudo apt install ./tenon_*.deb   # Debian, Ubuntu
sudo dnf install ./tenon_*.rpm   # Fedora, RHEL

From source

You need Go 1.26 or later. Use the latest Go 1.26 patch release (≥ 1.26.9 as of 2026-10-15): earlier ones have known vulnerabilities in the standard library. The dependencies are included in the repository: no module proxy is contacted.

git clone https://github.com/tenon-code-eu/tenon.git
cd tenon
GOFLAGS=-mod=vendor go build -o tenon ./cmd/tenon

Quick start

tenon key set mistral                  # stores the key in the system keyring
tenon                                  # interactive interface, in the project directory
tenon -p "explain the project layout"  # one turn without the interface, for scripts

The key can also come from the MISTRAL_API_KEY variable. Without a key, use a local model: tenon --provider ollama.

The interface is in English by default. For French, run with --lang fr or set lang = "fr" in the configuration.

To mark the commits that contain code written by the agent:

tenon git install-hook

Documentation

• Usage guide: keys, approval, non-interactive mode, sessions, configuration, providers, MCP, git marking, audit.
• Security and limits: sovereignty criteria, guarantees, known limits, recovery.
• Example configuration: commented file, without secrets.
• Report a vulnerability and contribute.
• Release checklist: for maintainers.
• Specification: design choices (in French).

License

tenon is distributed under the EUPL-1.2 license.

En français

tenon est un agent de code en terminal, écrit en Go, pour Linux et macOS. Il lit votre projet, propose des modifications et exécute des commandes, sous votre contrôle. Les fournisseurs préconfigurés sont européens (Mistral AI, Scaleway, OVHcloud) ou locaux (Ollama, vLLM). Tout envoi hors de l'UE demande votre accord explicite, et tout est tracé dans un journal d'audit chaîné. Par défaut, les écritures, les commandes et les appels d'outils MCP attendent votre validation. L'interface est en anglais par défaut : lancez tenon --lang fr ou mettez lang = "fr" dans la configuration.

Documentation en français : guide d'utilisation, sécurité et limites.