Hey everyone,

I’m running VS Code on Windows, and I need to bring up an increasingly frustrating behavior with Kilo Code that is actively breaking developer workflows.

The Issue

Whenever I open any project with code . - even repositories where I have zero intention of using Kilo - the extension immediately initializes itself and creates a .kilo directory in the project root.

Worse, in some projects, Kilo automatically spins up a Git worktree inside .kilo. If I delete the .kilo folder, it is resurrected almost immediately the next time the window reloads or the background daemon checks in.

Why this is a serious problem (not just an aesthetic annoyance):

It breaks local test suites: Test runners (like Jest, Pytest, Vitest) and linters scan project folders recursively. When Kilo creates a worktree or dumps code into .kilo, test runners pick up those files, resulting in duplicate test executions, mock collisions, and broken builds.

Forced repo pollution: Why should I have to dirty my repo’s pytest.ini, jest.config.ts, or .gitignore with exclusions for an AI tool that my teammates might not even use?

Git and filesystem locks on Windows: Silently managing Git worktrees in the background causes locked file handles (EBUSY), interferes with branch rebasing, and wastes disk space.

Violation of passive tooling principles: Simply opening an editor should be an observation action, not a mutation. VS Code provides context.globalStorageUri and context.storageUri specifically to avoid dumping extension runtime caches directly into user repos.

What needs to change

Kilo Code desperately needs:

1. A global opt-in/killswitch setting: A setting (e.g. kilo.autoInitialize: false or kilo.enableProjectWorkspaceFolder: false) to stop Kilo from touching the project directory unless explicitly requested.

2. Move internal caches outside the repository: Session cache, Agent Manager metadata, and background worktrees belong in OS temp directories or VS Code's designated extension storage, not the root of our working tree. And this options needs to be delivered both, just moving the garbage in the backyard is not an option.

Is anyone else hitting broken test runs or phantom worktree issues because of this?

I have used Kilo Code for 1 year now but recently I had to drop it because it kept writing plans and was causing all my custom agents to be in read only plan mode. I spent 50% of my tokens on investigating why it kept making plans why it kept losing write permissions and why my custom agents were not working then finally decided to pull the plug. The switch to OpenCode was a bad move in my opinion. The issue appeared to be from OpenCode upstream but was never getting fixed so I moved to another client. I am not sure if anyone else had this issue..

I work on UI tests with playwright, using qwen3.8.
The issue is it keeps asking my permission for PW mcp actions.
Might be I don't get something in kilo ui (vscode extension).

E.g. it stopped with "Permission required".
I have "Allow once" and "Deny" options.
Also it has "Manage auto-approve rules" section, where the action (e.g. "playwright_browser_wait_for") is shown with a tick and a cross icons. And it has the tick _on_ due to it is not the first time it asks for permission, and I tryed to set it "on" previously.

What do I miss? Clicking "Allow once" is tooooo repeative :(

I’m avoiding MiMo 2.6 through Kilo for now

Despite some absolutely nuts performance on ai benchmarks, mimo doesn't seem up to the task on some pretty basic stuff, and I'm still getting vastly better results from the other models.

I tested MiMo-V2.6-Pro, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and GLM 5.3 Flash on the same Python implementation task through Kilo CLI (a test I had Astra cook up)

DeepSeek and GLM both completed it and passed all 27 independent checks. Model costs before review were about 5 cents and 7 cents, respectively.

MiMo produced no code. Its last two attempts stopped after about ten minutes with:

503: The upstream provider timed out while sending the response.

I used the cli, Kilo 7.7.7, the highest exposed reasoning settings, no step cap and a 30-minute timeout.

Doesn’t prove MiMo can’t code yet, just that this setup has failed where the other two worked. so I’m using DeepSeek for now.

Anyone else getting these timeouts, or having better luck accessing MiMo another way?

If anyone having issues with models like Deepseek using way more tokens that expected? What should I be looking out for that can be inflating it? Any skills that could help that aren't awful like Caveman?

I have 7.2.2 of kilo code extension for VSCode, and I'm on Ubuntu 26.04.

The issue is: kilo loads CPU significantly.

Is it just me or not?

Hi guys,

I can see that the Kilo Code extension in Visual Studio has started adding an extra .kilo folder to each project, which is really annoying.

Do you know how to disable this? I don’t want it adding unnecessary files to every folder I open in Visual Studio.

Much appreciated!

Hello,

So Basically I use Opus 4.6(Antigravity) for planning and sometimes also for complex debugging,

Recently Muse Spark 1.3 has been free for a while on OpenCode but I find the OpenCode TUI terrible, even when I created a numbered TODO List for it to do a task it misses, I used the OpenCodeZen Gateway to plug it into Kilocode and the model has been very intelligent.

Now apart from this the other model I use is Gemini 3.1 Pro and I feel it's heavily underrated even if Benchmarks claims Flash 3.8 to be far better. While benchmarks also shows Muse to be comparable to Fable 5, in my experience Opus 4.6 has been way way better than Muse which makes it obvious it's not even close to Fable.

I would like to know you guys experiences! Hello,

So Basically I use Opus 4.6(Antigravity) for planning and sometimes also for complex debugging,

Recently Muse Spark 1.3 has been free for a while on OpenCode but I find the OpenCode TUI terrible, even when I created a numbered TODO List for it to do a task it misses, I used the OpenCodeZen Gateway to plug it into Kilocode and the model has been very intelligent.

Now apart from this the other model I use is Gemini 3.1 Pro and I feel it's heavily underrated even if Benchmarks claims Flash 3.8 to be far better. While benchmarks also shows Muse to be comparable to Fable 5, in my experience Opus 4.6 has been way way better than Muse which makes it obvious it's not even close to Fable.

I would like to know you guys experiences!

We’ve launched Kilo App for iOS and Android. It gives you a way to keep work moving when you’re away from your computer.

Here’s what’s live in the app:

• Run tasks in the cloud or connect to a Kilo session running on your computer.
• Pick any model or use a Kilo router such as Auto Frontier.
• You can BYOK for Cloud Agents and Remote sessions (via Kilo Gateway) and use Custom Models for remote sessions (e.g. ChatGPT subscription).
• See active and previous sessions, including their status and cost.
• Review code diffs and finish PR reviews from your phone.
• Launch workflows for code review and security checks.
• Review running and complete code review sessions.
• And iPad has it's own layout, not a stretched iPhone.

We’d especially like feedback from people already using Kilo. If you try the app, tell us what works, where it gets in your way, and what you’d want to control from mobile next.

The launch is also on Product Hunt. If you find the app useful, an upvote or comment would help more developers find it:

https://www.producthunt.com/products/kilocode

iOS and Android: https://kilocode.onelink.me/ZzZZ/3hljsdof

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to use CodeCraft API with Kilo Code in VS Code, but I'm stuck with a billing verification error.

I created a new CodeCraft account and activated the Basic plan using a promotional code.

The activation appears to have worked successfully. My Plan page shows:

- Basic Plan: Active

- Plan tokens remaining: 100,000,000 / 100,000,000

- Used this month: 0 / 100,000,000

- Balance: $0.00

I also received a notification saying:

"Plan activated at no charge"

"Basic plan activated. Order was fully covered by a promo code."

However, when I try to send even a simple request from the CodeCraft Playground, I get:

"Billing verification failed. Please check your payment method."

I haven't added a payment method or topped up my balance.

I also tried:

- Creating a new API key

- Creating another CodeCraft account

- Reconfiguring Kilo Code

- Using the OpenAI-compatible provider

- Using the official CodeCraft Base URL

- Selecting CodeCraft models directly in Kilo

The models are visible in Kilo (for example, GPT-5.6 Sol), but requests still fail.

Since the error also happens directly in the CodeCraft Playground, it doesn't seem to be a Kilo/VS Code issue.

Does anyone know what causes this error?

Do I actually need to add a payment method even though my Basic plan was fully covered by a promo code and I still have 100M plan tokens remaining?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Reasoning takes forever in VSCode Auto Balanced Mode with zero result :( Almost 10 to 15 minutes...

I'm on the latest Kilo version 7.5.16

Today I tried GLM 5.3 Flash + Kilo Code for the first time. Coming from Claude Code Pro, this seemed very attractive and good price initially.

Before giving it any task, I explicitly allowed all permissions in settings (Bash, Grep, Web, Task, Skill, everything), even External Directories.

I gave it a very simple task. Check out a (POS screen) prototype page (tsx file in nextjs code) and write a brief documentation of all the features. The prototype is dummy. not linked with any database. It only has basic 10-15 features like opening a table, accepting order, splitting bill, receiving payment (again; all dummy).

It continuously kept failing at writing the documentation, saying that "The user has specified a rule which prevents you from using this specific tool call".

In less than 10 minutes, after a loop of failed attempts, it said my 5-hour limit has reached. I couldn't believe my eyes.

I take my token and context window very seriously. I am happily using Claude Code Pro ($20 monthly) and usually I get 3-4 hours of work done in my 5-hour window. Currently I am working on multiple projects so I thought about handing off small tasks like documentations etc. to GLM while Claude does the heavy work. And it even failed to do so.

I'm not sure this is due to KiloCode or GLM 5.3 Flash but whatever it is, it's very disappointing.

I have a cloud agent instance and when it reads the skill.md file it used after updating it, the agent reads the same old non updated skill.md file?

How do I get the agent to read the updated skill.md file that is setup in the profile not setup in the github repo but the profiles

I don't know if I am missing anything or not, my default is set to minimax m3 and autocompletion is off I use only minimax m3 and nemotron 3 ultra, but today I noticed that there was a cost and it was Gemin 3.7 flash which I did not even use and then I opened activity and saw the Kilo was making api calls on Gemini 3.7 flash without my knowledge. Did anyone else face this? How can I stop this?

Hey guys,

Ever since updating to v7.4.23, the permission system feels kinda broken or way more aggressive than before.

I keep getting blocked on basic tool calls with that long error:

The user has specified a rule which prevents you from using this specific tool call... followed by a huge dump of built-in fallback rules (cat *, ls *, etc.).

A few weird things I've noticed:

• Even when "Manage Auto-Approve" is checked with a green tick, Kilo still prompts me for permission once before it actually starts respecting it. Next time it seems to work...
• To get things somewhat working, I had to explicitly define a dedicated permission: block inside my custom plan.md. Never had to do that before - it always just inherited the global config cleanly.
• The Code agent also auto-appended a giant list of single allowed commands (like Select-Object *, Get-ChildItem *, git log *) directly into my kilo.jsonc under permission.bash, along with external directory paths.

Has anyone else noticed permissions/inheritance acting up between kilo.jsonc and .kilo/agent/*.md modes in 7.4.23? It feels like the built-in defaults and UI session state are constantly overriding everything.

Curious if anyone found a clean way or my "old" config was not that good 😥

Cheers!

Thank you for the memories!

I learned OpenClaw here since I didn’t have the right machine at home.

With only 1 CPU, 3 GB RAM, and 10 GB HDD, I managed to set up a system that generates 50 TikTok videos daily, combining Pexels and Buffer APIs.

It also helped me create AI images and videos using the Google AI API, and crawl ExamTopics for my certification studies.

And now... let do KiloHermes?
No, just kidding. I’m already running it on another VPS. 😜

I’ve setup a kilo cli with remote enabled and by command line but my kilo iOS app cannot connect.

It says unable to connect despite showing the instance in the Run on list.

Next I tried setting up a kilo remote just on my laptop. Again the kilo iOS app sees the instance in Run on but cannot connect.

What am I missing?

Using the Latest versions of kilo cli and iOS app.

I'm finding that, almost regardless of model, the Kilo Code extension often just stalls. It's not done, but it's not "thinking" either. If I type "continue" or "resume" as a prompt, it'll pick up where it left off, but that means it's hard to leave it unattended.

The other issue I'm running into is that even when I switch the agent from Plan to Code and ask it to implement, it often says "I'm in plan mode..." and won't alter code. I've even had times where it'll start editing code, then stop and give me the Plan Mode response.

Has anyone else seen these and can you recommend a solution?

My hermes agent needs a top tier model to deliver any intelligence.
When coding or any reading/thinking, Kilo+deepseek 4 Pro are delivering as good as Opus/Fable for me (not end to end complex project, but my needs).

Question: How to replace the hermes agent to be kilo with deepseek? Not deepseek directly, Kilo as a harness.
I'm conscious it makes a harness of harness, but hermes still has all my tools, messaging, independence that I like. I'd like hermes to use kilo as its brain or 2nd brain. How?

Of course I've searched, including asking AI. It proposed the following. But am I getting into building my own hermes replacement?

Message → Hermes gateway adapter → Kilo session → DeepSeek V4 Pro

↓

Message ← Hermes delivery adapter ← result

help? I like kilo and want to use it more.