aiciba

A dictionary between any two languages, in your terminal and in Alfred.

Install

npm install -g aiciba

Usage

ciba <word>       # look up a word
ciba -l           # browse history
ciba --config     # languages, provider, model, API key
ciba --clear      # clear history
ciba --version    # show version
ciba --help       # show all commands

ciba --config asks which language you look words up in and which language definitions are written in — any language the model knows, whether or not it is on the list. Either one works at the prompt: with a Japanese–English dictionary configured, ciba gratitude returns the entry for 感謝.

How a lookup is answered

| | takes | covers | | --- | --- | --- | | cache | instant | anything looked up before | | dictionary | ~0.5s | English↔Chinese — IPA, distinct senses, bilingual examples, spelling corrections | | your AI provider | ~2s | every other language pair, and words no dictionary lists |

The dictionary is Youdao's public endpoint: no key, but not a published API either, so anything it refuses falls through to the model.

Everything lands in ~/.aiciba — one history per language pair, 500 words each. AICIBA_HOME moves it. AICIBA_API_KEY, AICIBA_PROVIDER, AICIBA_MODEL, AICIBA_ENTRY_LANGUAGE and AICIBA_DEFINITION_LANGUAGE override the stored config, which is how the Alfred workflow passes its own settings.

Alfred workflow

Alfred 5 with Powerpack. Download AICIBA.alfredworkflow from Releases and double-click it, or build your own:

pnpm build:workflow

c <word> looks up, c alone browses history, and a Hotkey or Universal Action looks up selected text. Typing only reads the cache; a source is consulted when you press ↩ on Look up ….

| | | | --- | --- | | ↩ on the word | play the pronunciation | | ↩ on a meaning | copy those meanings | | ⌥↩ | play the pronunciation, from any row | | ⌘C on the word / ⌘L anywhere | the whole entry, copied or in Large Type |

Alfred stays open when you play or copy, so ⎋ dismisses it.

Its Configuration mirrors ciba --config; leave a field empty to follow the CLI. The workflow bundles everything but Node 18+ — and Alfred runs scripts without your shell's PATH, so paste which node into Node Path if it cannot find yours.

Supported providers

| Provider | Models | | --------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | | Anthropic | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001, claude-sonnet-5, claude-opus-4-8 | | OpenAI | gpt-5.4-mini, gpt-5.4-nano, gpt-5.6 | | Gemini | gemini-3.8-flash, gemini-3.1-pro-preview |

Pick a small one: a dictionary entry is recall, not reasoning. gpt-5.4-mini answers in about two seconds, gpt-5.4-pro in over a minute and a half — for the same three lines.

Layout

| | | | --- | --- | | src/core | the dictionary itself — cache, sources, config, languages | | src/cli | the ciba command | | src/alfred | the workflow's two entry points: script filter and lookup | | workflow | what gets packaged — info.plist, shell wrappers, icon |

License

MIT

Inspired by iCIBA (爱词霸), the dictionary that accompanied a generation of Chinese English learners.