Ask CLI

A fast and lightweight AI-powered CLI tool to help you with commands, coding, apps and more.

• 🤖 Get help about commands, coding, apps, etc.
• 📝 Short and precise answers, just the info you need, straight to the point.
• 🚀 Blazing fast speed, almost instant responses.
• 🛡️ Safe by design, it cannot run commands or access your files without your explicit authorization.

Forget about switching between applications to know how to use a command or fix an error. Just ask your terminal how to do it.

Content

• Why use Ask CLI?
• Installation
• Usage
• Select model
• Supported models
• Connect to local or external providers
• Reference

Why use Ask CLI?

Why use Ask CLI and not an AI agent like Claude or Gemini?

• Ask CLI was created to do one thing and do it well: help you with commands, coding, apps and more from your terminal.
• The AI models it uses are optimized to generate short, precise and fast answers.
• No risk of prompt injection, Ask CLI cannot run commands or access your files by default.
• No risk of running dangerous commands on your computer. See Running commands for more details.
• Designed for anyone who wants fast, secure, and precise help directly in the terminal.

Installation

npm install -g ask-cli-ai

Usage

To use Ask CLI, you first need to set up the API key. See Select model to learn how.

Ask questions

# Basic usage
ask <your question>

# Examples
ask how to terminate a linux process
ask what is a javascript promise
ask how to create a git branch

# Using quotes
ask 'What does this command do: git config user.name "Ask CLI"?'

Aliases

You can use how and what as aliases for the ask command:

# Using 'how' alias
how to install docker on ubuntu

# Using 'what' alias
what is the difference between git merge and rebase

Running commands

By default, Ask CLI cannot run commands on your computer. However, you can use the -c or --command option to execute a command and include its output in your question. This allows Ask CLI to analyze errors, logs, or any command output and provide context-aware answers.

# Analyze an error
ask why is this failing -c "npm run build"

# Get help with command output
ask explain this output -c "docker ps -a"

# Debug issues
ask what is wrong here -c "git status"

Select model

You can select a model using the ask /models command. This will list all the available models and let you select the model you want to use.

If it's the first time you select a model, you will be prompted to set the API key for the model's provider.

Supported models

Gemini

• Gemini 3 Flash Preview
• Gemini 3 Pro Preview
• Gemini 2.5 Flash
• Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
• Gemini 2.5 Pro

OpenAI

• GPT-5 Mini
• GPT-5 Nano
• GPT-5
• GPT-5.2
• GPT-5.2 Pro
• GPT-4.1

Anthropic

• Claude Haiku 4.5
• Claude Sonnet 4.5
• Claude Opus 4.5

Connect to local or external providers

You can use the ask /connect command to connect to local models or external providers, using an OpenAI-compatible API, like llama.cpp, Ollama, Hugging Face, etc.

Reference

AI CLI to help you with commands, coding, apps and more.

Version: 1.2.2

Usage: ask <prompt..>

Commands:
  ask <prompt..>     Ask something. Alias: what, how                   [default]
  ask /models        Select a model
  ask /providers     Setup providers
  ask /config        Configuration
  ask /connect       Connect to an external provider using OpenAI-compatible API
  ask /history       List the chat history
  ask /clear         Clear the chat history

Positionals:
  prompt                                                                [string]

Options:
      --version  Show version number                                   [boolean]
      --help     Show help                                             [boolean]
  -c, --command  Command to execute                                     [string]

Examples:
  ask how to run a docker container
  how to setup my git account
  what is the chmod command
  ask what is using port 80 -c "netstat -ano"