ask

AI CLI tool for natural language interaction with LLMs.

Installation

Using Homebrew (macOS)

First, add and trust the tap:

brew tap nimahejazi/tap
brew install nh-ask-cli
brew upgrade nh-ask-cli

Note: You may need to run brew trust nimahejazi/tap if Homebrew requires verification.

From Source

Requires Python 3.9 or later.

git clone https://github.com/nimahejazi/ask.git
cd ask
pip install -e .

Usage

# Interactive chat mode
ask --it

# Quick query
ask "What is the capital of France?"

# Command mode (extract only executable commands)
ask -c "List files in current directory"

# With tools
ask -t ./tools.sh "Do something with tools"

Configuration

Run ask once to configure your preferred LLM provider (Mock, Ollama, LM Studio, Anthropic, or ChatGPT).

API Keys and Environment Variables

For Anthropic and ChatGPT providers, you can set your API key either in the config file (via ask interactive setup) or via environment variables. Environment variables are read without writing to the config file:

• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY — for Anthropic
• OPENAI_API_KEY — for ChatGPT (OpenAI-compatible)

Precedence: a key stored in ~/.askrc takes precedence over the environment variable. If no key is stored in config, the environment variable is used. ask --show-config indicates whether a key is set without ever printing its value, and key entry is masked (no echo) in the terminal.