Coding Tool Helper (ai-helper)

An enhanced fork of @z_ai/coding-helper — a multi-provider CLI helper for managing coding tools like Claude Code, with dynamic model selection and support for 11 AI providers.

Currently supported coding tools:

• Claude Code
• OpenCode
• Crush
• Factory Droid

Currently supported AI providers:

| Provider | API Format | Auth Type | |---|---|---| | GLM Coding Plan (Global) | Anthropic | API Key | | GLM Coding Plan (China) | Anthropic | API Key | | OpenAI | OpenAI | API Key | | Anthropic (Claude) | Anthropic | API Key | | xAI (Grok) | OpenAI-Compatible | API Key | | GitHub Copilot | OpenAI-Compatible | OAuth | | Google Gemini | OpenAI-Compatible | API Key | | Amazon Bedrock | Anthropic | API Key | | DeepSeek | OpenAI-Compatible | API Key | | Mistral AI | OpenAI-Compatible | API Key |

Features

• Multi-provider support — Connect and manage 11 AI providers, not just GLM Coding Plan
• Dynamic model selection — Automatically fetches available models from the provider API and lets you choose
• Interactive wizard — Friendly onboarding guidance on first launch
• Provider management — Connect, activate, update, and disconnect providers with ease
• Auto-detection — Detects providers from environment variables (e.g. OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY)
• Tool management — Automatically detects, installs, and configures CLI tools
• MCP configuration — Easily manage MCP services
• Secure credential storage — Credentials stored in a separate auth.yaml with restricted file permissions (0600)
• Local storage — All settings are stored securely on your machine
• Internationalization support — Chinese and English bilingual interface
• Legacy migration — Automatically migrates configs from the original @z_ai/coding-helper

Quick Start

Prerequisite: make sure Node.js 18 or later is installed.

Install and launch

Option 1

## Run directly with npx
npx @lee_ai/coding-helper

Option 2

## Install @lee_ai/coding-helper globally first
npm install -g @lee_ai/coding-helper
## Then run ai-helper
ai-helper

Complete the wizard

Once you enter the wizard UI, use the Up/Down arrow keys to navigate and press Enter to confirm each action, following the guided initialization flow.

The wizard will help you complete:

1. Selecting the UI language
2. Connecting an AI provider (choosing provider, entering API key, selecting model)
3. Selecting the tools to manage
4. Automatically installing tools (if needed)
5. Loading the provider configuration into the tools
6. Managing MCP services (optional)

Command list

Besides the interactive wizard, ai-helper also supports executing every feature directly through CLI arguments:

# Show help
ai-helper -h
ai-helper --help

# Show version
ai-helper -v
ai-helper --version

# Run the initialization wizard
ai-helper init

# Language management
ai-helper lang show              # Display the current language
ai-helper lang set zh_CN         # Switch to Chinese
ai-helper lang set en_US         # Switch to English
ai-helper lang --help            # Show help for language commands

# API key management
ai-helper auth                   # Interactively set the key
ai-helper auth revoke            # Delete the saved key
ai-helper auth reload claude     # Load the latest provider config into the Claude Code tool
ai-helper auth --help            # Show help for auth commands

# Health check
ai-helper doctor                 # Inspect system configuration and tool status

Configuration files

Main config: ~/.chelper/config.yaml

lang: zh_CN                    # UI language
active_provider: glm-global    # Currently active provider ID
providers:                     # Per-provider configuration
  glm-global:
    model: glm-5.1
  openai:
    model: gpt-4o

Credential storage: ~/.chelper/auth.yaml

Credentials are stored separately with restricted file permissions (0600):

glm-global:
  api_key: your-api-key-here
openai:
  api_key: sk-xxx

Differences from @z_ai/coding-helper

This project is an enhanced fork based on @z_ai/[email protected]. Below is a summary of all differences:

1. Multi-Provider Architecture (Core Change)

| Aspect | Original (@z_ai/coding-helper) | This Fork (@lee_ai/coding-helper) | |---|---|---| | Provider count | 2 (GLM Global, GLM China) | 11 (GLM + OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, GitHub Copilot, Gemini, Bedrock, DeepSeek, Mistral) | | Auth model | Plan-based (glm_coding_plan_global / glm_coding_plan_china) | Provider-based (any provider ID) | | Credential storage | Single config.yaml with api_key field | Separate auth.yaml with restricted permissions (0600) | | Config structure | plan + api_key + model | active_provider + providers[id] + per-provider model |

2. Dynamic Model Selection

• Original: No model selection — user must manually edit ~/.claude/settings.json to change ANTHROPIC_MODEL
• Fork: Automatically fetches available models from the provider's API (/v4/models or equivalent) and presents an interactive selection list. Falls back to "default (unspecified)" if the API call fails.

3. Environment Variable Auto-Detection

• Original: None
• Fork: Automatically detects providers from environment variables:
  • GLM_API_KEY -> GLM providers
  • OPENAI_API_KEY -> OpenAI
  • ANTHROPIC_API_KEY -> Anthropic
  • XAI_API_KEY -> xAI
  • GITHUB_COPILOT_TOKEN -> GitHub Copilot
  • GOOGLE_API_KEY / GEMINI_API_KEY -> Google Gemini
  • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID / AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY -> Amazon Bedrock
  • DEEPSEEK_API_KEY -> DeepSeek
  • MISTRAL_API_KEY -> Mistral

4. Package & CLI Naming

| Item | Original | Fork | |---|---|---| | Package name | @z_ai/coding-helper | @lee_ai/coding-helper | | CLI binary | chelper / coding-helper | ai-helper / chelper | | Author | Z.AI | LEE.AI | | Version | 0.0.7 | 0.1.0 |

5. New Files

• dist/lib/auth-store.js — Centralized credential storage with per-provider management and legacy migration support
• dist/lib/provider-registry.js — Provider registry defining 11 built-in providers with their API formats, base URLs, auth types, and supported tools

6. Refactored Files

| File | Summary of Changes | |---|---| | dist/lib/wizard.js | Replaced plan-based flow with provider management menu (connect, activate, manage, disconnect providers) | | dist/lib/config.js | Added provider-based config methods (getActiveProvider, setActiveProvider, getProviderConfig, custom provider support), legacy migration | | dist/lib/api-validator.js | Provider-aware model fetching and API key validation | | dist/lib/claude-code-manager.js | loadGLMConfig() -> loadConfig(providerId, apiKey, model), supports Anthropic/OpenAI API formats | | dist/lib/opencode-manager.js | loadGLMConfig() -> loadConfig(providerId, apiKey, model), dynamic base URLs for OpenAI-compatible providers | | dist/lib/crush-manager.js | loadGLMConfig() -> loadConfig(providerId, apiKey, model), multi-provider tagging | | dist/lib/factory-droid-manager.js | loadGLMConfig() -> loadConfig(providerId, apiKey, model), per-provider model entries | | dist/lib/tool-manager.js | loadGLMConfig() -> loadConfig(toolName, providerId, apiKey, model), provider-aware delegation | | dist/lib/command.js | CLI name changed to ai-helper, removed legacy enter subcommand | | dist/commands/auth.js | Provider-aware auth management, uses authStore and providerRegistry | | dist/locales/zh_CN.json | Added provider-related keys, removed hardcoded plan/model keys | | dist/locales/en_US.json | Same structure as zh_CN, English translations |

7. Unchanged Files

The following files remain identical to the original:

• All .d.ts TypeScript definition files
• cli.js, index.js (entry points)
• dist/utils/logger.js, dist/utils/string-width.js
• dist/commands/doctor.js, dist/commands/config.js, dist/commands/lang.js
• dist/lib/mcp-manager.js
• dist/commands/index.js

8. Backward Compatibility

• Existing GLM configs are automatically migrated to the new provider format
• Plan ID mapping: glm_coding_plan_global -> glm-global, glm_coding_plan_china -> glm-china
• API keys and model preferences are preserved during migration
• When no model is selected, behavior is identical to the original (no ANTHROPIC_MODEL written)
• unloadConfig() cleans up both the config and the ANTHROPIC_MODEL environment variable

License

Apache License 2.0. Based on @z_ai/coding-helper (Copyright 2025 Zhipu AI). Modifications follow the same license.