Dive into Claude Code: The Design Space of Today's and Future AI Agent Systems
Claude Code is an agentic coding tool that can run shell commands, edit files, and call external services on behalf of the user. This study describes its architecture by analyzing the publicly available source code and comparing it with two independent open-source AI agent systems, OpenClaw and Hermes Agent, that answer many of similar or even the same design questions. Our analysis identifies five human values, philosophies, and needs that motivate the architecture: human decision authority, safety, security, and privacy, reliable execution, capability amplification, and contextual adaptability. We then trace them through thirteen design principles to implementation choices. The core of ...
| Authors | Jiacheng Liu, Xiaohan Zhao, Xinyi Shang et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.SE |
| Published | 14 April 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 10 October 2026 |
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