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MiniMax Code

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MiniMax Code
DeveloperMiniMax
TypeDesktop AI coding agent and general agent workspace
LineageMiniMax Agent (web, June 19, 2025); desktop app renamed MiniMax Code on May 29, 2026
Current generationMiniMax Code 2.0 (core shipped July 13, 2026; announced globally August 7, 2026)
PlatformsmacOS 11+, Windows 10+, web
ModelsMiniMax M-series, primarily MiniMax M3; BYOK supported
Agent frameworkPi (open source, MIT); earlier harness drew on OpenCode and Pi
PricingMiniMax Token Plan ($20 to $120 per month), prepaid credits, free daily check-in points
Websiteagent.minimax.io (global), agent.minimaxi.com (China)

MiniMax Code is a desktop AI agent application from Shanghai-based AI company MiniMax that combines chat, local project context, file operations, terminal sessions, browser previews, skills, memory, and automation in one workspace, covering both software development and general office work.[1] The product grew out of MiniMax Agent, the company's general-purpose agent launched in June 2025, and took the MiniMax Code name when the desktop app was rebranded on May 29, 2026.[2][3] On August 7, 2026, MiniMax announced MiniMax Code 2.0 globally, describing it as rebuilt on Pi, an open-source agent framework created by Mario Zechner and maintained by Earendil Inc.[5]

Background: MiniMax Agent

MiniMax introduced MiniMax Agent on June 19, 2025, as a general agent for long-horizon, complex tasks that could plan multi-step work, break down requirements, and deliver end-to-end results. At launch the company said the tool had been used internally for nearly 60 days and had become a daily tool for more than half of its team.[2] The product started as a web application; a desktop version for macOS and Windows followed on January 19, 2026, adding workspace selection, local file processing, and browser automation.[3]

On May 1, 2026, the desktop app shipped what MiniMax called a next-generation architecture (v3.0.20), with per-agent personas, a three-layer memory system (user, agent, project), parallel sub-agents, MCP tool integration, scheduled tasks, and messaging-channel access through Feishu and Telegram.[3] Earlier in 2026 MiniMax had also run two related assistant experiments, MaxClaw and MaxHermes, the latter described as a cloud-based assistant built on Hermes Agent with self-evolving skills.[3]

From MiniMax Agent to MiniMax Code

The desktop app was officially renamed MiniMax Code on May 29, 2026 (v3.0.33), with the new name in the Dock and taskbar and a new minimax CLI shortcut. The same release added automatic import of skills from Claude Code, Codex, and other AI coding tools.[3] MiniMax never shipped a release labeled "MiniMax Code 1.0": installer versions continued the v3.0.x numbering inherited from the MiniMax Agent desktop app, and "2.0" names the rebuilt core generation rather than a build number.[3]

When MiniMax M3 was released on June 1, 2026, MiniMax positioned MiniMax Code as "an agent product designed specifically for M3 and trained together with M3." The company also disclosed the product's foundations: "MiniMax Code is built on a harness based on the outstanding open-source community projects OpenCode and Pi. We also plan to open-source this project in the future as a way to give back to the open-source community."[4] Changelog entries from the pre-2.0 period reference a built-in OpenCode runtime inside the app.[3]

DateReleaseMilestone
June 19, 2025MiniMax Agent (web)General agent for long-horizon tasks launched[2]
January 19, 2026Desktop appMiniMax Agent for macOS and Windows[3]
May 1, 2026v3.0.20Next-generation desktop architecture: personas, three-layer memory, sub-agents, MCP, scheduled tasks[3]
May 29, 2026v3.0.33Desktop app renamed MiniMax Code; minimax CLI shortcut[3]
June 1, 2026M3 launchMiniMax Code updated as the companion agent for M3; harness credited to OpenCode and Pi[4]
July 13, 2026v3.0.48-49"MiniMax Code 2.0: All-New Core" rebuild ships in the desktop app[3]
July 16, 2026Announcement (China)MiniMax announces the 2.0 rebuild on the Pi Agent framework[6][7]
July 20, 2026v3.0.52Remote Control, built-in browser, Coding/Work modes, BYOK[3]
July 27, 2026v3.0.54Browser Control, Goal Mode, Feedback Center[3]
August 5, 2026v3.0.58Proactive Memory, text-selection comments, daily check-in rewards[3]
August 7, 2026Announcement (global)MiniMax Code 2.0 launch announced on X, crediting the Pi Agent framework[5]

MiniMax Code 2.0

The 2.0 core arrived in the desktop releases v3.0.48 and v3.0.49 on July 13, 2026, under the heading "MiniMax Code 2.0: All-New Core." MiniMax says the rebuild cut p95 and p99 first-token latency by more than 90 percent, reduced unexpected interruptions and silent stalls, improved how conversation state and tool-call data persist across sessions, lowered runtime dependencies for low-memory devices, and streamlined Windows installation.[3]

MiniMax announced the update in China on July 16, 2026. Chinese outlets The Paper and Zhitong Finance reported that the underlying architecture had been comprehensively rebuilt on the open-source Pi Agent framework, restructuring conversation execution, state management, and the tool-calling chain to fix waiting, freezes, and context interruptions in long-running tasks. The same coverage noted a finance-research module connected first in the web version, and said remote control, browser operation, and goal and planning modes would follow within the month.[6][7] An earlier Computer Use feature had been temporarily disabled over compatibility and user-experience concerns.[3]

The follow-on features landed through late July and early August: Remote Control (driving the desktop agent from a phone, including approving permission requests), a built-in browser with a mobile preview mode, separate Coding and Work modes, bring-your-own-key model configuration, continuous Browser Control with confirmation gates for outward-facing actions, Goal Mode for long-running objectives, and Proactive Memory that retains communication preferences and project conventions across tasks.[3]

The global announcement came on August 7, 2026, when the company's @MiniMaxAgent account posted: "Today we're launching MiniMax Code 2.0. Rebuilt on the open-source @pidotdev Pi Agent framework, MiniMax Code 2.0 delivers a smoother, more reliable experience across everyday conversations, office work, and long-running complex tasks."[5]

The Pi agent framework

Pi is a minimal, MIT-licensed open-source coding agent and agent toolkit written in TypeScript by Austrian developer Mario Zechner, the creator of the libGDX game framework. The project began in August 2025 as a monorepo combining a unified LLM API, an agent loop, a terminal UI, and a coding agent CLI; Zechner described his design philosophy in a November 2025 essay, and the CLI first appeared on npm the same month.[13][17][18] Pi ships with only four core tools (read, write, edit, and bash), keeps its system prompt under 1,000 tokens, and deliberately omits built-in MCP support, sub-agents, permission popups, and plan modes, instead exposing a TypeScript extension system, skills, and shareable packages. It supports more than 15 model providers, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and MiniMax, and can run as an interactive TUI, in print/JSON mode, over an RPC protocol, or embedded as an SDK.[12]

On April 8, 2026, Earendil Inc., a public benefit corporation founded in 2025 by Flask creator Armin Ronacher and Colin Daymond Hanna, announced it had acquired the Pi project, with Zechner joining as a major stakeholder and team member. Earendil's backers include Accel, Balderton, and the founders of n8n, OpenClaw, Revolut, Sentry, and Slack; Pi also serves as the minimal agent inside OpenClaw.[14][15][16] Ronacher committed to keeping Pi "a high-quality, open, extensible piece of software."[15] As of August 2026 the repository, now hosted at earendil-works/pi, has roughly 85,000 GitHub stars.[13]

MiniMax had said in June 2026 that it plans to open-source its own harness in the future.[4]

Models and pricing

MiniMax Code is the first-party client for MiniMax's M-series large language models and defaults to MiniMax M3, the mixture-of-experts model with MiniMax Sparse Attention and a 1 million token context window released on June 1, 2026. MiniMax reports M3 scores of 59.0 percent on SWE-Bench Pro and 66.0 percent on Terminal-Bench 2.1.[4] M3's image and video input also underpins the product's computer-use capability, which MiniMax temporarily disabled in mid-2026 pending improvements.[4][3] Users can alternatively supply a MiniMax API key or configure any custom provider through BYOK with a base URL, API key, and model name.[1][3]

Subscription access runs through the MiniMax Token Plan, which shares one quota across text, image, speech, and music generation and also covers third-party coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex via OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic-compatible endpoints.[8][9]

TierPriceApproximate monthly M3 quota
Plus$20/month~1.7 billion tokens[4]
Max$50/month~5.1 billion tokens[4]
Ultra$120/month~9.8 billion tokens[4]

Prepaid credits are sold at 1,000 credits per US$1 and remain valid for 365 days, and the app awards daily check-in points (400 on regular days and 1,000 on days 4 and 7, up to 4,000 in a full week, valid for 30 days) usable across MiniMax Code tasks.[8][3]

Features

MiniMax Code separates a Coding mode, which keeps the project environment, Git branches, and worktree tools in view, from a Work mode that hides technical detail for research, documents, and other office deliverables.[1][3] Users attach a local workspace so the agent can read project files, run commands, and show diffs in Files, Changes, and Terminal panels, with an IDE picker for opening projects in Cursor, VS Code, and other editors.[1][3]

For long tasks, the Agent Team system has a lead agent decompose work into parallel jobs handed to worker agents, with adversarial verifier agents gating quality; MiniMax describes the loop as producer plus verifier and says it draws on what it calls the harness school of thought.[11][4] Goal Mode keeps the agent iterating toward a stated objective, asking for input only when blocked.[3] Automation features include natural-language scheduled tasks, messaging integrations with Telegram, WeChat, and Lark/Feishu, and Remote Control from a phone.[1][3] A permission system classifies commands as allow, confirm, or block, routes medium-risk commands through LLM review, and requires explicit confirmation for destructive operations.[3] The desktop app runs on macOS 11 Big Sur or later and Windows 10 or later, with separate download sites for global and mainland China users.[10]

Reception

Reviewing the product in June 2026, Tech My Money found MiniMax Code best suited to structured, repeatable agent work driven by house skills and workflows, praised the 1 million token context and the separate-verifier Agent Team pattern, and cautioned that production use needs strict guardrails around local file permissions.[19] A DataCamp tutorial from the same month called the output quality polished but described the Token Plan, credits, and API billing distinctions as confusing and found some tasks slower than competing tools.[20] Chinese financial media covered the 2.0 rebuild as a stability-focused overhaul, noting the fixes to long-task freezes and interruptions alongside the planned finance-research features.[6][7]

See also

References

  1. ^"Welcome to MiniMax Code." MiniMax Agent Docs. agent.minimax.io/...welcome
  2. ^"MiniMax Agent: Code is Cheap, Show Me the Requirement." MiniMax News, June 19, 2025. minimax.io/...minimax-agent
  3. ^"Changelog." MiniMax Agent Docs (MiniMax Code release notes, v3.0.20 through v3.0.60). agent.minimax.io/...changelog
  4. ^"MiniMax M3: Frontier Coding, 1M Context, Native Multimodality, All in One Model." MiniMax Research blog, June 1, 2026. minimax.io/...minimax-m3
  5. ^MiniMax_Agent (@MiniMaxAgent) launch announcement for MiniMax Code 2.0. X, August 7, 2026. x.com/...2085679716976243045
  6. ^"MiniMax宣布更新MiniMax Code 2.0桌面端" (MiniMax announces the MiniMax Code 2.0 desktop update). The Paper (澎湃新闻), July 16, 2026. m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_33597100
  7. ^"MiniMax Code 2.0焕新，底层架构全面升级" (MiniMax Code 2.0 refreshed, underlying architecture fully upgraded). Zhitong Finance (智通财经) via Tencent News, July 16, 2026. news.qq.com/...20260716A049H000
  8. ^"Token Plan." MiniMax API Docs, subscription pricing. platform.minimax.io/...pricing-token-plan
  9. ^"Claude Code." MiniMax API Docs, Token Plan integrations (with sibling pages for Cursor and Codex). platform.minimax.io/...claude-code
  10. ^"Download and Install." MiniMax Agent Docs. agent.minimax.io/...download
  11. ^"MiniMax Agent Team: Built for Long-Horizon Work, Built to Keep Improving." MiniMax Agent tech blog. agent.minimax.io/...agent-team
  12. ^"Pi." Official site of the Pi coding agent, Earendil. pi.dev
  13. ^"earendil-works/pi: AI agent toolkit: unified LLM API, agent loop, TUI, coding agent CLI." GitHub (repository created August 9, 2025). github.com/...pi
  14. ^"Announcing Pi & Lefos." Earendil, April 8, 2026. earendil.com/...announcing-pi-and-lefos
  15. ^Armin Ronacher. "Mario and Earendil." Armin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings, April 8, 2026. lucumr.pocoo.org/...mario-and-earendil
  16. ^Mario Zechner. "I've sold out." mariozechner.at, April 8, 2026. mariozechner.at/...2026-04-08-ive-sold-out
  17. ^Mario Zechner. "What I learned building an opinionated and minimal coding agent." mariozechner.at, November 30, 2025. mariozechner.at/...2025-11-30-pi-coding-agent
  18. ^"@mariozechner/pi-coding-agent." npm (MIT license, first published November 12, 2025). npmjs.com/...pi-coding-agent
  19. ^"MiniMax Code Review: M3, Agent Teams, Token Plan Tested." Tech My Money, June 23, 2026. techmymoney.com/...minimax-code-m3-review
  20. ^Abid Ali Awan. "MiniMax M3 Tutorial: Using MiniMax Code on Web and Desktop." DataCamp, June 3, 2026. datacamp.com/...minimax-code-minimax-m3

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Reviewer note: New article verified line-by-line against the MiniMax changelog, the M3 blog, platform docs, and Chinese press on August 8, 2026; check-in reward and citation-precision defects were corrected.

Cite this page: AI Wiki. "MiniMax Code." aiwiki.ai, updated 7 Aug 2026, fact-checked 7 Aug 2026. CC BY 4.0. https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/minimax_code

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