oi

Command-line chat interface for multiple LLM providers, with streaming output, persistent chats, and YAML-based model aliases.

Highlights

• One CLI for multiple providers through pydantic-ai (openai, openai-responses, anthropic, google, openrouter, moonshotai, and others you add in YAML).
• Fast model switching via aliases like sonnet, gpt, gemini-pro.
• Chat history with resume/continue flows and an interactive selector that can search, preview, and open chats in your editor ($EDITOR).
• Chat bookmarks with /bookmark in-chat plus bookmark/filter controls in the selector.
• Optional web search and thinking traces when the selected model supports them. --search also lets the model read a URL you give it, and /search turns it on partway through a chat.
• Optional full-screen TUI mode (--tui, or "tui": true in config.json; --no-tui opts back out for one run) that renders responses as live-streamed markdown. In the TUI, ↑ on an empty prompt walks back through your messages: edit one to branch the conversation from there, and switch between branches later — the old one is kept, never lost.
• Paste images with Alt+V (Ctrl+V on Mac) on vision-capable models.
• User config in ~/.config/oi/ merges with built-in defaults.

Install

uv tool install oi-chat   # recommended
# or
pipx install oi-chat

For local development:

git clone https://github.com/dansclearov/oi.git
cd oi
uv install --group dev
uv run oi --help

Quick Start

Set one or more provider API keys (you only need keys for providers you use):

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...
export OPENAI_API_KEY=...
export GEMINI_API_KEY=...
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=...

To keep oi's billing separate from your shell environment, put keys in ~/.config/oi/env (dotenv format, same variable names) instead — keys set there take precedence over the environment.

If ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set, longer chats get an auto-generated title via a tiny Haiku call (a fraction of a cent); without it, chats just keep their first-message title.

Alternatively, bill OpenAI models to a ChatGPT subscription instead of an API key with oi auth openai login; eligible models then route through the subscription automatically (set OI_NO_SUBSCRIPTION=1 to force the API key).

Start chatting:

oi
oi -P concise -m sonnet

Common Commands

# Pick prompt + model
oi -P concise -m gpt

# Continue or resume chats
oi -c
oi -r
oi -r chat_20240622_143022_a1b2c3d4

# Headless: send one message and exit
oi -p "what's 2+2"
oi -c -p "follow up on the last chat"
oi --ephemeral -p "quick question, don't save it"
oi -c --ephemeral -p "probe an existing chat without dirtying it"

# In-chat local commands
/btw <question>   # one-off question with full context, not saved to the chat
/bookmark
/vim
/tui

# Slash commands complete with Tab

# Model features
oi --search -m sonnet
oi --no-thinking -m gpt
oi --hide-thinking -m gpt

# Show config/data paths
oi --user-paths

Configuration

Default models and aliases live in src/oi/models.yaml. User overrides live in ~/.config/oi/models.yaml and are merged on top of defaults.

Example user overrides:

aliases:
  default: r1
  r1: openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528

openrouter:
  deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528:
    supports_thinking: true
    supports_search: true

Notes:

• Top-level keys starting with _ are ignored (useful for YAML anchors/metadata).
• extra_params is passed through for provider-specific model settings.
• On first run, ~/.config/oi/models.yaml is auto-created from a template.
• oi docs models prints the full guide to adding models (config shape, pydantic-ai model names, API keys, the built-in defaults). It's written for LLM agents — if you use a coding agent like Claude Code, just ask it to add the model and it will find the guide via oi --help.

Prompts

Prompts are loaded from:

1. ~/.config/oi/prompts/ (user overrides)
2. src/oi/prompts/ (built-ins)

Naming format is prompt_<name>.txt, used as oi -P <name>.

Set the default prompt for new chats in ~/.config/oi/config.json:

{
  "default_prompt": "concise"
}

With nothing configured, chats start with no system prompt (empty). An explicit -P still wins, for example oi -P general.

Development

uv run pytest
uv run ty check

License

MIT. See LICENSE.