Effortless AI in your terminal.
Quickly turn on, turn off, list, show costs and connect to your AWS instances. Great for saving costs by running servers in the cloud and starting them only when needed.
Install Terminal AI:
npm install @dwmkerr/terminal-aiRun the tool to configure your environment and start interactively interfacing with AI:
aiThat's it.
Every feature can be used as a command or in an interactive session.
The quickest way to learn how to use the tool is to look at the #examples. Each command is documented below.
WIP
WIP
Shows the current configuration, which is loaded from the configuration files in the [~/.ai] folder, environment variables (and in the future) from local .ai files:
$ ai
{
"openAiApiKey": "<secret>",
"prompts": {
"chat": {
A local boxes.json file can be used for configuration. The following values are supported:
{
"boxes": {
/* box configuration */
},
"aws": {
"region": "us-west-2"
},
"archiveVolumesOnStop": true,
"debugEnable": "boxes*"
}
Box configuration is evolving rapidly and the documentation will be updated. The AWS configuration is more stable.
Clone the repo, install dependencies, build, link, then the boxes command will be available:
git clone git@github.com:dwmkerr/boxes.git
# optionally use the latest node with:
# nvm use --lts
npm install
npm run build
npm link boxes # link the 'boxes' command.
# Now run boxes commands such as:
boxes list
# Clean up when you are done...
npm unlinkThe CLI uses the current local AWS configuration and will manage any EC2 instances with a tag named boxes.boxid. The value of the tag is the identifier used to manage the specific box.
Note that you will need to rebuild the code if you change it, so run npm run build before using the boxes alias. A quick way to do this is to run:
npm run relinkIf you are developing and would like to run the boxes command without relinking, just build, link, then run:
npm run build:watchThis will keep the ./build folder up-to-date and the boxes command will use the latest compiled code. This will sometimes work but it might miss certain changes, so relink is the safer option. build:watch works well if you are making small changes to existing files, but not if you are adding new files (it seems).
The debug library is used to make it easy to provide debug level output. Debug logging to the console can be enabled with:
AI_DEBUG_ENABLE="1" npm startThe debug namespaces can be configured like so:
AI_DEBUG_NAMESPACE='ai*'To show a warning and terminate the application, throw a TerminatingWarning error:
import { TerminatingWarning } from "./errors.js";
throw new TerminatingWarning("Your AWS profile is not set");To create a terminal recording for the documentation:
- Install asciinema
brew install asciinema - Check that you have your profiles setup as documented in
./scripts/record-demo.sh - Run the script to start a 'clean' terminal
./scripts/record-demo.sh - Download your recording, e.g. to
./docs/620124.cast - Install svg-term-cli
npm install -g svg-term-cli - Convert to SVG:
svg-term --in ./docs/620124.cast --out docs/democast.svg --window --no-cursor --from=1000
The demo script is currently:
boxes lsboxes start steamboxboxes costs --yesboxes ssh torrentboxboxes stop steamboxboxes ls
Actions - these are commander.js functions that are called by the CLI. They should validate/decode parameters and ask for missing parameters. They will then call a command. Commands - these are the underlying APIs that the CLI offers - they are agnostic of the command line interface (and could therefore be exposed in a web server or so on).
- Interactive by default - with no input,
aiis friendly and interactive. Everything that can be done interactively can be done non-interactively. Interactive operations hint at how to run non-interactively.
"Context" refers to prompts which are passed to the model before the user interacts, which can provide the model with more information about the environment of the user or their potential intent. Examples would be:
- That the user is running in a shell, with a given set of terminal dimensions
- What the operating system is that the user is running
- (WIP) the organisation and name of the local Git repo
- (WIP) the primary language of the current Git repo.
When expanding context prompts (e.g. ./prompts/chat/context/context.txt) environment variables may be used to give more specific information. As well as those provided by the system (or yourself), the following are automatically set for convenience:
| Environment Variable | Description |
|---|---|
OS_PLATFORM |
nodejs os.platform() |
TTY_WIDTH |
The terminal width (or 80 if not set) |
TTY_HEIGHT |
The terminal height (or 24 if not set) |
Quick and dirty task-list.
Chat - book ready
- document chat
- nth: reply/copy/quit options
- nth: chat command needs error handling
Output modes (interaction modes) - book ready
- Input: : input
Code - book ready
- code: interactive
- nth: code - non interactive
Documentation - book ready
- nth: terminal recording
Epic - Output Modes
- feat: custom inqurirer module to handle keypresses and toggle the input prompt
Chat
- nth: decide on whether a response prompt is needed. For a single line response it is probably good, for multi-line it is probably unneeded, for a single line of code it is likely not needed, consider either heuristics or configuration options
- nth: support reflow with marked-terminal to more gracefully show output
-
bug(build): remove the disable deprecation warnings code and fix the punycode issues
-
bug(build): don't include source - just dist
-
bug(ai): on startup the default yaml config should be copied over?
-
bug(chat): when non-interactive if API key is not set, error message must be plain text
-
devex: 'ai' local command to run from my folder
-
nth(chat): line up input/output prompts on the colon
-
build: lint on commit or at least push
-
nth: 'vanilla' flag (no prompts)
-
fix(config): hide sensitive values by default
-
minor: consider what heading/title to run when init-ing the key or first time interactive.
-
really user friendly way to get API key set
-
we can check first time run via presence of config file
-
Call from vi example
-
Put in effective shell chapter
-
Check competitors
-
Spinners
-
Interactive mode shows prompt in green press up down to cycle modes
-
Chat mode default
-
Output: file -suggestion name and format eg ics
-
Clipboard
-
Structure: context prompt / input prompt / text / output mode
-
GitHub mode
-
Vanilla mode
-
Online instructions for api key
-
Videos on LinkedIn
-
When code is shown offer copy command
-
Execution context tty
-
Location specific prompts, eg create a .ai folder, include prompts in it, tai shows them
-
docs: readline/prompt input keyboard shortcuts (cancel, copy, etc)
-
nth: unhandled error prettier printing