tclaude 0.1.1

A complete terminal implementation of Anthropic's Claude.

tclaude — Claude in the terminal

A complete implementation of Claude in the terminal.

Unlike other tools that aim to support all kinds of LLMs, tclaude is designed specifically for Claude. As such, Claude-specific features like caching, Claude-native web search or code execution are implemented correctly and fully.

Highlights

• Interactive chat with resumable sessions, extended thinking, and tool use
  • Built-in gounded web search, code execution, and file analysis
  • Remote and local MCP server support
• Implement any custom tool in just a few lines of Python
• Automatic caching (makes Claude up to 10x cheaper!)

Installation

git clone https://github.com/tom94/tclaude
pip install . --user

Then set the ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable to your Claude API key and you are good to go.

Usage

Running tclaude opens a new chat session. You can also directly pass a prompt to start a session.

tclaude "How do I make great pasta?"
# or: echo "How do I make great pasta?" | tclaude
> Great pasta starts with quality ingredients and proper technique. ...

Or use an outward pipe to integrate tclaude into unix workflows

git diff --staged | tclaude "Write a commit message for this diff." | xargs -0 git commit -m

Upload files with -f

tclaude -f paper.pdf "Summarize this paper."
tclaude -f cat.png "Is this a dog?"

Claude will use web search and server-side code execution when the request demands it:

tclaude "Tell me the factorials from 1 through 20."
> [Uses Python to compute the answer.]

tclaude "What is the state of the art in physically based rendering?"
> [Uses web search and responds with citations.]

Sessions

Once you're done chatting, the session will be automatically named and saved as <session-name>.json in the working directory.

You can resume the session with tclaude -s <session-name>.json.

Customize where sessions are saved by passing --sessions-dir <dir> or by setting the TCLAUDE_SESSIONS_DIR environment variable.

Extended thinking

Enable thinking with --thinking

tclaude --thinking "Write a quine in C++."
> [Claude thinks about how to write a quine before responding.]

Custom system prompt

If you'd like to customize the behavior of Claude (e.g. tell it to be brief, or give it background information), create ~/.configs/tclaude/roles/default.md. The content of this file will be prepended as system prompt to all conversations.

If you'd like to load different system prompts on a case-by-case basis, you can pass them as

tclaude --role pirate.md "How do I make great pasta?"
> Ahoy there, matey! Ye be seekin' the secrets of craftin' the finest pasta this side of the Mediterranean, eh? ...

Custom tools

Simply implement your tool as a function in src/tclaude/tools.py and it will be callable by Claude. Make sure to document the tools' function thoroughly such that Claude uses it optimally.

License

GPLv3; see LICENSE for details.