A CLI that converts natural language to shell commands.

Inspired by the GitHub Copilot X CLI, but open source for everyone.

AI Shell

Ruby port by Antonio Molinari, inspired by the original BuilderIO/ai-shell CLI.

Setup

Requires Ruby 3.0+

1. Install ai shell:

   gem install ai-shell
   

   Or from this repository:

   bundle install
   bundle exec rake install
   # or
   gem build ai-shell.gemspec && gem install ./ai-shell-*.gem
   

2. Retrieve your API key from OpenAI

   Note: If you haven't already, you'll have to create an account and set up billing.

3. Set the key so ai-shell can use it:

   ai config set OPENAI_KEY=<your token>
   

   This will create a .ai-shell file in your home directory.

Usage

ai <prompt>

For example:

ai list all log files

Then you will get an output where you can choose to run the suggested command, revise it via a prompt, edit it, copy it, or cancel.

Special characters

Some shells handle characters like ? or * specially. Wrap the prompt in quotes if needed:

ai 'what is my ip address'

Chat mode

ai chat

Engage in a conversation with the AI directly through the CLI.

Silent mode (skip explanations)

ai -s list all log files

Or save the preference:

ai config set SILENT_MODE=true

Custom API endpoint

ai config set OPENAI_API_ENDPOINT=<your proxy endpoint>

Default: https://api.openai.com/v1

Set Language

Language	Key
English	en
Simplified Chinese	zh-Hans
Traditional Chinese	zh-Hant
Spanish	es
Japanese	jp
Korean	ko
French	fr
German	de
Russian	ru
Ukrainian	uk
Vietnamese	vi
Arabic	ar
Portuguese	pt
Turkish	tr
Indonesian	id
Italian	it

ai config set LANGUAGE=zh-Hans

Config UI

ai config

Upgrading

ai --version
gem update ai-shell

Or:

ai update

Development

bundle install
bundle exec bin/ai --help
bundle exec bin/ai config set OPENAI_KEY=<your token>
bundle exec bin/ai list all log files

Common Issues

429 error

This is due to incorrect billing setup or excessive quota usage. Please follow this guide to fix it.

You can activate billing at this link.

Motivation

I am not a bash wizard, and am dying for access to the copilot CLI, and got impatient.

Credit

• Ruby port by Antonio Molinari
• Inspired by BuilderIO/ai-shell
• Thanks to GitHub Copilot for their amazing tools and the idea for this
• Thanks to Hassan and his work on aicommits, which inspired the workflow and some parts of the code and flows
• Original Node.js implementation by Builder.io