# Grok Build CLI 66 Hacker News commenters recommended Grok Build CLI and 114 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Fast, smooth terminal coding agent that people find capable and recommend; critics say it uploads whole directories, including secrets, to xAI. ## Why people recommend it - Smooth, sleek terminal interface (5 comments): "I have found Grok Build to be decent, and the harness to be competitive with similar harnesses." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930743)) "the harness itself is butter smooth with the potential of being the best out there" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927519)) "Its TUI interface, sleek design, and ease of use have really won me over." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48615365)) - Strong results on real projects (4 comments): "I tried it on a couple of projects and was (pleasantly?) surprised how good it was." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48657062)) "It's the only one I pay for and it's made me insanely productive." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929990)) "the best coding AI agent I have ever had the pleasure of using" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929781)) - Fast performance (3 comments): "Grok Build seems faster to me than omp and Claude Code but I can't put my finger as to why" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927344)) "Grok Build has had impressive performance in a couple of my projects. And fast." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48877986)) "Its amazing the speed of build with grok 4.5 its a taste of whats to come." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48928379)) - Open source release (3 comments): "They made it open source. Isn't this what the community was asking for?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927129)) "it's open source. Presumably anyone who wants to trust it can audit it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929289)) "open source harness is definitely a step in the right direction" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932578)) ## What people warn about - Uploads whole directory and secrets (7 comments): "The entire directory (not repo) and all repo history regardless of secrets or instructions otherwise is not needed for faster cache access." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48935529)) "It is a deliberate choice of the Grok Build team to have a toggle from the server to let the program to upload your entire codebase" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48895030)) "The fact that the whole repo is automatically uploaded is crazy though, especially for multi-gigabyte repositories." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48885786)) - Undisclosed, no opt-out (2 comments): "The fact that they made it something you can't opt out of and wasn't disclosed at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48878934)) "this is bad... but just for chuckles, i asked grok cli to check disclosure and look through the binary and logs to see which config would stop it from doing that" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48878351)) - Bloated code and dependencies (2 comments): "What a bunch of slop: 182 top-level external dependencies (so, without considering nested dependencies) and 1318853 lines of code in Rust." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927974)) "Sounds like they did the ol “grok please make this secure” and it slopped out this plausible-if-you-squint nonsense." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48928517)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [GitHub Copilot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-copilot.md): 571 recommend - [oh-my-pi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oh-my-pi.md): 104 recommend - [DeepSeek Harness](https://hackerapproved.com/p/deepseek-harness.md): 63 recommend - [Claude Code VS Code extension](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude-code-vs-code-extension.md): 31 recommend - [Antigravity CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/antigravity-cli.md): 31 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Grok Build CLI", https://hackerapproved.com/p/grok-build/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).