ask

ask is an AI-powered CLI tool for developers who live in the terminal. It brings multi-provider LLM support, agent capabilities, and shell-native intelligence to your fingertips.

ask is an AI-powered CLI tool for developers who live in the terminal. It brings multi-provider LLM support, agent capabilities, and shell-native intelligence to your fingertips.

Why ask?

Unlike generic LLM CLIs, ask is built for shell power users:

• Generates reusable bash functions - Not just answers, but tools
• Agent mode - Executes safe plans with your approval
• Shell-native - Works perfectly with pipes and Unix philosophy
• Context-aware - Understands git repos, recent commands, system state
• Fast & streaming - Real-time responses as you type
• Multi-provider - Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepSeek, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, and Ollama (local)
• Structured output - --json, --csv, --md, --raw for pipeline composability
• Pure bash - No Python, Node, or other runtimes needed

Installation

Quick Install

# Download
curl -o ask https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elias-ba/ask/main/ask
chmod +x ask

# Move to PATH
sudo mv ask /usr/local/bin/

# Or for user-only install
mv ask ~/.local/bin/

Using Git

git clone https://github.com/elias-ba/ask.git
cd ask
chmod +x ask
sudo ln -s "$(pwd)/ask" /usr/local/bin/ask

Dependencies

• curl - For API calls
• jq - For JSON processing
• Optional: glow or bat for prettier output

Install on Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get install curl jq

Install on macOS:

brew install curl jq

Uninstall

To completely remove ask from your system:

# Remove the binary
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/ask
# Or if installed to user directory
rm ~/.local/bin/ask

# Remove configuration and saved functions
rm -rf ~/.config/ask/

# Remove cache and history
rm -rf ~/.cache/ask/

Setup

Quick Setup (Recommended)

ask manages API keys for you:

# S