terminal-sherpa 0.1.0

AI-powered bash command generator

ask

A lightweight AI chat interface for fellow terminal dwellers.

Turn natural language into bash commands instantly. Stop googling syntax and start asking.

🚀 Getting Started

Get up and running:

# Install ask
uv tool install ask

# Set your API key
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your-key-here"

# Try it out
ask "find all .py files modified in the last week"

Example output:

find . -name "*.py" -mtime -7

✨ Features

• Natural language to bash conversion - Describe what you want, get the command
• Multiple AI provider support - Choose between Anthropic (Claude) and OpenAI (GPT) models
• Flexible configuration system - Set defaults, customize models, and manage API keys
• XDG-compliant config files - Follows standard configuration file locations
• Verbose logging support - Debug and understand what's happening under the hood

📦 Installation

Requirements

• Python 3.13+
• API key for Anthropic or OpenAI

Install Methods

Recommended (uv):

uv tool install ask

Using pip:

pip install ask

From source:

git clone https://github.com/lcford2/ask.git
cd ask
uv sync
uv run ask "your prompt here"

Verify installation:

ask --help

💡 Usage

Basic Syntax

ask "your natural language prompt"

Command Options

Option	Description	Example
--model provider:model	Specify provider and model	ask --model anthropic:claude-3-haiku "list files"
--verbose	Enable verbose logging	ask --verbose "compress this folder"

Practical Examples

File Operations:

ask "find all files larger than 100MB"
# Example output: find . -size +100M

ask "create a backup of config.txt with timestamp"
# Example output: cp config.txt config.txt.$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)

Git Commands:

ask "show git log for last 5 commits with one line each"
# Example output: git log --oneline -5

ask "delete all local branches that have been merged"
# Example output: git branch --merged | grep -v "\*\|main\|master" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d

System Administration:

ask "check disk usage of current directory sorted by size"
# Example output: du -sh * | sort -hr

ask "find processes using port 8080"
# Example output: lsof -i :8080

Text Processing:

ask "count lines in all Python files"
# Example output: find . -name "*.py" -exec wc -l {} + | tail -1

ask "replace all tabs with spaces in file.txt"
# Example output: sed -i 's/\t/    /g' file.txt

Network Operations:

ask "download file from URL and save to downloads folder"
# Example output: curl -o ~/Downloads/filename "https://example.com/file"

ask "check if port 443 is open on example.com"
# Example output: nc -zv example.com 443

⚙️ Configuration

Configuration File Locations

Ask follows XDG Base Directory Specification:

1. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ask/config.toml
2. ~/.config/ask/config.toml (if XDG_CONFIG_HOME not set)
3. ~/.ask/config.toml (fallback)

Environment Variables

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your-anthropic-key"
export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-openai-key"

Example Configuration File

Create ~/.config/ask/config.toml:

[ask]
default_model = "anthropic"

[anthropic]
api_key = "your-anthropic-key"
model = "claude-3-haiku-20240307"
max_tokens = 512

[anthropic.sonnet]
model = "claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022"
max_tokens = 1024

[openai]
api_key = "your-openai-key"
model = "gpt-4o"
max_tokens = 1024

🤖 Supported Providers

• Anthropic (Claude)
• OpenAI (GPT)

Note: Get API keys from Anthropic Console or OpenAI Platform

🛣️ Roadmap

Near-term

• Shell integration and auto-completion
• Command history and favorites
• Safety features (command preview/confirmation)
• Output formatting options

Medium-term

• Additional providers (Google, Cohere, Mistral)
• Interactive mode for complex tasks
• Plugin system for custom providers
• Command validation and testing

Long-term

• Local model support (Ollama, llama.cpp)
• Learning from user preferences
• Advanced safety and sandboxing
• GUI and web interface options

🔧 Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/lcford2/ask.git
cd ask
uv sync
uv run pre-commit install

Testing

uv run python -m pytest

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Run pre-commit checks: uv run pre-commit run --all-files
5. Submit a pull request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see our Contributing Guidelines for details.

Issues

Found a bug or have a feature request? Please open an issue on GitHub Issues.