⌬ Zero CLI

Start from zero. Ship from anywhere.

A geometric, multi-model AI coding agent for the terminal — concentric, focused, and at home in any shell. Drives Anthropic-protocol-compatible LLM APIs (Anthropic Claude, Zhipu GLM, DeepSeek, Volcengine, Alibaba Qwen, Moonshot, and more) from a single, brand-distinct CLI marked by the ⌬ Zero glyph.

Zero CLI focuses on optimizing the harness layer (context window management, token budgeting, request headers, timeouts, agent runtime) for third-party Anthropic-protocol providers. For the official Anthropic Claude models, use Anthropic's official Claude Code — that's where they're tuned best.

Install

# Recommended (faster)
bun add -g @paean-ai/zero-cli

# Or via npm
npm install -g @paean-ai/zero-cli

Guides

• Windows + DeepSeek (English, npm-only): docs/windows-install-zero-cli-deepseek.md
• 简体中文： docs/windows-install-zero-cli-deepseek.zh.md

Quick Start

Zero supports two backends, picked at the CLI level without opening the TUI:

# 1) Paean AI (default, recommended)
zero login

# 2) Third-party provider (e.g. z.ai's GLM Coding Plan)
zero provider set zai --api-key <YOUR_GLM_API_KEY>

Then start a session:

zero                         # interactive
zero -p "explain this repo"  # one-shot

Also available as tide

Zero CLI installs a second command called tide that launches the same binary under the DeepTide brand:

tide                         # same as `zero`, branded as DeepTide
tide -p "explain this repo"

DeepTide is our macOS-native AI coding app; Zero CLI is the cross-platform CLI from the same team that serves Linux, Windows, and non-native-app macOS users. The two products are developed in parallel and evolve independently — Zero CLI focuses on the harness layer for terminal-first workflows; DeepTide focuses on a tuned native macOS experience. The shared interface contract (tool names, slash commands, CLI flags, hook env vars, model aliases) lives in docs/tide-spec.md so a user's hooks and muscle memory port between the two.

On macOS we recommend the native DeepTide app for the best GUI experience. The tide CLI is the cross-platform terminal complement.

zero login — Paean AI account

zero login           # browser-based OAuth
zero auth status     # check who you're logged in as
zero auth logout

zero provider — Third-party API provider

Use this when you want Zero to talk to a non-Paean, Anthropic-protocol-compatible endpoint. Three presets ship out of the box: z.ai (GLM), Volcengine (Ark), DeepSeek. All commands are scriptable — no TUI required.

# Show currently active provider (if any)
zero provider
zero provider status --json

# List available provider presets
zero provider list

# Configure a preset (writes the API key to userSettings + cache)
zero provider set zai        --api-key <YOUR_GLM_API_KEY>
zero provider set volcengine --api-key <YOUR_ARK_API_KEY>
zero provider set deepseek   --api-key <YOUR_DEEPSEEK_API_KEY>

# Optional: override model IDs per tier
zero provider set zai --api-key <KEY> \
  --opus GLM-5.1 --sonnet GLM-4.7 --haiku GLM-4.5-Air

# Switch back to Paean.ai
zero provider clear

The API key may also be supplied via the ZERO_PROVIDER_API_KEY environment variable (useful in CI). Restart zero after changing the provider for the new config to take effect.

Quick switch between providers (cached credentials)

Once a preset has been configured at least once with zero provider set, its credentials are cached in userSettings.providerCache. You can then jump between providers without retyping the API key:

# Re-activate a preset from cache (no --api-key needed)
zero provider use zai
zero provider use volcengine
zero provider use deepseek

# Inspect what's cached (API keys are masked)
zero provider cache list
zero provider cache list --json

# Evict one entry, or wipe the whole cache
zero provider cache clear deepseek
zero provider cache clear

zero provider use <preset> fails fast if no cache entry exists — you'll be told to run zero provider set first.

Preset defaults

z.ai (GLM Coding Plan)

| Tier | Model | Context | |------|-------|---------| | pro (default) | GLM-5.1 | 200K | | flash | GLM-4.7 | 200K | | lite | GLM-4.5-Air | 128K |

Get an API key at https://bigmodel.cn/usercenter/proj-mgmt/apikeys.

Volcengine (火山引擎 Ark Coding Plan)

| Tier | Model | Context | |------|-------|---------| | pro (default) | ark-code-latest | 256K | | flash | ark-code-latest | 256K | | lite | ark-code-latest | 256K |

Volcengine's coding endpoint serves a single unified model (ark-code-latest) across all tiers. Pin to a specific snapshot with zero provider set volcengine --opus <snapshot-id> or via the wizard.

Get an API key at https://console.volcengine.com/ark.

DeepSeek (Official)

| Tier | Model | Context | |------|-------|---------| | pro | deepseek-v4-pro | 1M | | flash (default) | deepseek-v4-flash | 1M | | lite | deepseek-v4-flash | 1M |

Two-model lineup: deepseek-v4-pro is the flagship, deepseek-v4-flash is the daily driver. The default tier is flash, mirroring DeepSeek's own pricing-page recommendation.

Get an API key at https://platform.deepseek.com/api_keys.

Model Tiers

Zero maps three capability tiers to any supported model:

| Preferred alias | Legacy alias | Role | |---|---|---| | pro | opus | Flagship — most capable, highest cost | | flash | sonnet | Standard — best for everyday tasks | | lite | haiku | Fast / cheap — quick answers, simple tasks |

Switch tiers in-session with either name — both resolve to the same model:

/model pro      # or /model opus
/model flash    # or /model sonnet
/model lite     # or /model haiku

The pro / flash / lite naming aligns with how third-party Anthropic-protocol providers (DeepSeek, Volcengine, GLM, Gemini, Qwen) tier their own catalogs. Zero CLI's display layer prefers these names; the legacy opus / sonnet / haiku remain accepted inputs for backward compatibility.

zero provider set writes the right env vars for you; to override manually:

export ZERO_CLI_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL=GLM-5.1        # pro tier
export ZERO_CLI_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL=GLM-4.7      # flash tier
export ZERO_CLI_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL=GLM-4.5-Air   # lite tier

(Env-var infixes still use the canonical internal form OPUS / SONNET / HAIKU so existing scripts and CI keep working.)

Or switch models in-session with /model.

Supported Models

| Model | Provider | Tier | |-------|----------|------| | claude-sonnet-4-6 | Claude (Vertex AI) | Standard | | claude-opus-4-5 | Claude (Vertex AI) | Flagship | | gemini-3-flash-preview | Google AI Studio | Standard | | gemini-3.1-flash-lite-preview | Google AI Studio | Fast | | GLM-5.1 | z.ai / ZhipuAI | Flagship | | GLM-4.7 | z.ai / ZhipuAI | Standard | | GLM-4.5-Air | z.ai / ZhipuAI | Fast | | qwen3-max | Alibaba (DashScope) | Flagship | | qwen-plus | Alibaba (DashScope) | Standard | | deepseek-v3.2 | DeepSeek (DashScope) | Standard | | deepseek-r1 | DeepSeek (DashScope) | Flagship | | kimi-k2.5 | Moonshot (DashScope) | Standard |

Configuration

Zero stores config in ~/.zero/. Key environment variables:

| Variable | Description | |----------|-------------| | ZERO_CLI_AUTH_TOKEN | API key for the configured provider | | ZERO_CLI_BASE_URL | API base URL (defaults to Paean AI) | | ZERO_CLI_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL | Model for the "opus" (flagship) tier | | ZERO_CLI_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL | Model for the "sonnet" (standard) tier | | ZERO_CLI_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL | Model for the "haiku" (fast) tier | | ZERO_PROVIDER_API_KEY | Fallback key read by zero provider set in CI |

Legacy ANTHROPIC_* equivalents are still honored but the ZERO_CLI_* names are preferred.

License

MIT