Admin Companion vs. RHEL Lightspeed command-line assistant (CLA): confirmation-gated execution and RHEL-grounded guidance

AI in the terminal is only valuable if it matches how admins actually work: run a command, inspect output, form a hypothesis, and iterate. ayonik Admin Companion and the command-line assistant powered by RHEL Lightspeed both support that loop - but they’re optimized for different strengths.

A helpful framing:

• Admin Companion was first released in December 2023 and can execute actions after explicit confirmation (agent-like, but gated).
  
• RHEL Lightspeed’s command-line assistant first became generally available with RHEL 9.6 in May 2025, is RHEL-aligned, grounded guidance and suggests commands you run yourself.
  

How they behave in day-to-day troubleshooting

Admin Companion: "do-work" assistant, behind a safety latch

Admin Companion’s documentation describes a built-in Security Layer: the AI does not directly interact with the system, and only user-approved commands can be executed.

This makes it well suited for:

• multi-step remediation plans (“do A, verify B, then change C”),
• scripting (“generate a safe rollback-capable script, then run it in stages”),
• longer interactive sessions where the assistant keeps the thread and you keep control.

RHEL Lightspeed CLA: expert advisor, tightly RHEL-aligned

Red Hat’s docs position the CLI assistant as a RHEL-native helper that incorporates RHEL documentation and KCS (Knowledge Centered Service) articles.

A key behavioral difference is spelled out: it does not have direct access to the system it’s running on; if asked for “free memory,” it responds with a command you can run to determine it.
In practice, this keeps the assistant in a “suggest and explain” role, while execution stays with the admin.

History storage

Admin Companion’s four-fold memory model

Admin Companion’s memory is best understood as four layers:

1. Dialogue history (short-term / session context)
   The client stores and can list/clear dialogue history
2. User-managed Topic (mid-term)
   A “topic” can be set by the user so it doesn’t fade out and stays in focus until removed.
3. User-managed Background (long-term)
   A “background” can be set and injected into every request - explicitly described as a way to tell the assistant persistent facts about the system or conventions (e.g., apache2 vs nginx, nftables vs iptables, custom log locations).
   
4. Admin Companion´s self-managed memory (long-term)
   In addition to user-managed memory, Admin Companion maintains its own long-term memory (per product design also stored on the local machine). The important point operationally is that memory is still something you can govern via the CLI (e.g., show/remove memory), rather than treating it as an opaque, uncontrollable feature.

That combination - session context + pinned topic + pinned background + self-managed long-term memory - is a standout differentiator for long-running operational work (incidents, migrations, repeated maintenance on the same estate).

RHEL Lightspeed's configurable backends

Red Hat documents that the daemon (clad) stores history in an SQLite DB by default, and can be configured for other backends.

Knowledge and grounding: RHEL depth vs. cross-platform breadth (plus services)

RHEL Lightspeed CLA: RHEL + KCS grounding

Red Hat documentation states the assistant incorporates information from RHEL documentation and Red Hat Knowledgebase/KCS, and is distributed as a supported component for subscribed RHEL systems.

Therefore it fully and solely bases on RHEL supported documentation.

Admin Companion: dynamic knowledge activation + broader domains

Admin Companion supports dynamically activated knowledge depending on the machine it runs on and the topic being discussed. The client exposes controls like enabling OS release detection and enabling/disabling internal knowledge and citations.

In addition to OS knowledge bases, Admin Companion’s curated knowledge also covers common admin “service stacks”, including: Apache HTTP Server, nginx, Postfix, MariaDB, Ansible

That service coverage matters because many real incidents are not “Linux in general,” but “web + mail + DB + automation,” often across multiple distros.

Data flow, and offline considerations

Lightspeed CLA: offline-mode

For restricted environments, Red Hat also published an offline developer preview for using the RHEL command-line assistant in disconnected/air-gapped setups (via Satellite/offline tooling).

Admin Companion: client-to-service flow + explicit execution gate

Admin Companion documents the outbound endpoints the client needs to reach. The endpoint can be configured towards a proxy, but connectivity is a prerequisite.

Pricing models: subscription-included vs. subscription + usage

RHEL Lightspeed command-line assistant

Red Hat states RHEL Lightspeed features (including the command-line assistant) are included as part of the value of a RHEL subscription, and the hosted service is provided as part of that subscription value.

Admin Companion

Admin Companion offers:

• a free trial credit at signup,
• then a recurring subscription fee that funds account balances, with consumption deducted based on usage-based token pricing (and a per-web-search fee).

Bottom line

• Pick Admin Companion if you want a seasoned, business-supported product and the speed of confirmation-gated execution, continuity across longer tasks via a multi-layer memory model, and broad coverage that spans OSes and common services.
  
• Pick RHEL Lightspeed CLA if you want a OS vendor-supported assistant that is maturing inside the RHEL lifecycle and aligns with enterprise constraints (including offline trajectories).