Augment Code

The main question is not "is Augment good," but whether its new scale matches your work.

Who it is for. For a team with a large multi-repository codebase where agents need the same context for tasks, reviews, CI, and incidents. Cosmos turns a successful manual run into a repeatable cycle with human checkpoints, while a flat $100 for up to 50 seats makes entry predictable for a small engineering organization.

Who it is not for. For an individual developer looking for an assistant next to the cursor. Since July 1, the old plugins have been retained only for active enterprise contracts, while Cosmos requires adopting separate orchestration, cloud context, and variable spending.

Quick router. If you need a personal agent, start with Claude Code and OpenCode. If you are choosing a fleet for a team, look at how Cosmos works below and compare the total cost, not just the $100 shown on the price page.

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The product has three layers, and mixing them up means comparing different tools. Context Engine continuously indexes repositories and retrieves the needed relationships for a task. Through MCP, the same context can be provided to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and another compatible agent - Augment then works not as an executor, but as memory over a large codebase.

Cosmos. Brings experts together in repeatable cycles. Official templates take a task from ticket to PR or launch an initial review; the result passes between stages, while a person approves branches and the final code.

Auggie CLI. Augment's terminal agent with MCP support. The new v2 shell is built on a fork of the open-source Pi project, but Context Engine remains closed-source; the vendor promises the v2 transition only in September–October.

Models. There is no lock-in to a single provider. GPT-5.6 Sol is currently the default model in Cosmos, but it can be changed.

Start with the surface that fits the task, not an old extension review. For teams the Business plan opens Cosmos, up to 50 seats, and 50 parallel sessions. Connect repositories and integrations, then the team defines experts and adds human checks between the stages of the cycle.

For the terminal. Install Auggie through npm and sign in to your workspace:

npm install -g @augmentcode/auggie

auggie login

For another agent. If Claude Code or Codex already works for you as an executor, connect only Context Engine MCP. This lets you test the value of the index without moving the whole team to Cosmos.

IDE. This is not an entry point for a new user. Marketplace explicitly states that development ended on 07/01/2026: VS Code and JetBrains are supported only for active enterprise contracts. Installing the old extension does not restore a public personal plan.

CLI commands and version verified on 08/23/2026 against Augment documentation · current version 0.35.0

All recent figures below were published by the vendor itself. They show direction, but without independent replication they do not become a final rating.

Auggie v2. On SWE-bench Pro, at the same task-solving rate, the new shell cost $1.27 per task versus $2.70 for Claude Code - 53% less; average time was 330 seconds versus 409. On Terminal-Bench 2.0, the task-solving rate rose from 70.8% to 74.2%. There is no external replication, and v2 itself is still awaiting release.

Context Engine MCP. Across 900 attempts on 300 Elasticsearch PRs, the vendor reports a 30-80% quality gain for different agents. The range is broad and the test was prepared by an interested party - the figure supports a hypothesis but does not guarantee the same effect on your code.

The $100 price tag looks like a subscription, but it is actually an entry ticket with usage included. The fee does not rise with each participant up to 50 seats; long agent runs are what get expensive.

Business. One amount for the whole team: up to 50 seats, $100 in usage, and 50 concurrent sessions. After that, you top up a shared balance; heavy and occasional users draw from one pool.

How usage is calculated. The model is billed at the provider's public API price, plus Augment's 40% service fee. There is no markup on compute, but Cosmos time is also deducted from the pool. So there is no formula for "this many tasks per month."

Two agreements. On paid plans, training on customer data is prohibited by the commercial terms. Community terms allow anonymized customer code, usage information, and output to be used for training and improvement. Check the workspace agreement, not just the wording on the security page.

The cloud remains the cloud. By default, data is stored and processed in the US. Certifications validate the process, but do not turn the closed Context Engine into a local tool; your own encryption keys and region selection are Enterprise features.

Humans keep the gate. Cosmos has checkpoints between experts and loops. They need to be designed: another agent's automated review is not a human decision on architecture, data, and money.

Our experience. In 2025, Augment handled a large codebase in the editorial team's day-to-day work. We did not retest this scenario in 2026.

Practical risk. Users praise its context quality on large codebases, but call the engine a cloud "black box" and complain about unpredictable usage on long tasks. These are signals from several threads, not market frequency.

Augment should be compared with Claude Code. The models overlap, but the product tradeoff is the opposite.

Claude Code. This is a personal tool: the agent works in the terminal, learns the project as the task unfolds, and is paid for with a Claude subscription or through the API.

Augment. This is a shared layer: Context Engine lives longer than a single session, Cosmos runs parallel loops and gives them shared organizational context. The $100 fee does not rise per participant up to 50 seats, but usage on top remains variable.

You do not have to choose everything at once. Context Engine MCP can be connected toClaude Code. This is an intermediate test: keep your familiar executor and pay Augment only for the difference you chose it for.

Over two years, Augment went from a smart plugin to an agent factory. What matters to the reader is not release speed, but the July agreement change: the old product remains, but its door is closed to new personal users.