ask-llm — LLM CLI Wrappers

A collection of lightweight Python wrappers for calling different LLM providers from the command line or from other scripts.

Providers

Installation

pip install ask-llm-help

For development:

pip install -e .

Configuration

Copy the example env file and fill in your API keys:

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your actual API keys

CLI Usage

ask-gemini "Explain photosynthesis" --system "You are a biology teacher"
ask-claude "Explain photosynthesis" --temp 0.3
ask-openai "Explain photosynthesis" --model gpt-4o
ask-qwen "Explain photosynthesis"

All CLI commands accept --system, --model, and --temp flags (except ask-qwen which uses positional args).

Import Usage

from ask_llm.ask_gemini import ask_gemini
from ask_llm.ask_claude import ask_claude
from ask_llm.ask_openai import ask_openai
from ask_llm.ask_qwen import ask_qwen_text  # non-streaming, returns str | None

result = ask_gemini("Summarise this text", system_instruction="Be concise.")
result = ask_qwen_text("Summarise this text", enable_thinking=True)  # thinking off by default

Shared function signature (Gemini, Claude, OpenAI)

ask_<provider>(
    prompt: str,
    system_instruction: str | None = None,
    model: str | None = None,
    temperature: float = 0.7,
    max_tokens: int = 4096–8192,
    json_mode: bool = False,       # not available on Claude
) -> str | None

Qwen — two functions

• ask_qwen_text(...) — non-streaming, returns str | None. Use in scripts. enable_thinking defaults to False to avoid billing thinking tokens that are never returned.
• ask_qwen(...) — streaming, prints to stdout. Use from CLI. enable_thinking defaults to True to show reasoning.

Notes

• All wrappers return None on failure and log errors via the standard logging module.
• HTTP requests have a timeout=60s (120s for Qwen streaming).
• Gemini passes the API key as an x-goog-api-key header (not in the URL) for security.