🤖 Biju CLI + TUI (v3.1)

An Autonomous AI Software Engineer in Your Terminal

Developed by Prithish Raj T 🚀

Biju is a 100% free, open-source autonomous AI terminal engineer. Plug in your own NVIDIA NIM API key (free tier) and get a full AI coding assistant right inside your terminal — no subscriptions, no paywalls.

✨ Two Interfaces, One CLI

1. 🖥️ Classic CLI — biju

The original prompt_toolkit + rich powered interface. Lightweight, fast, works in any terminal. Supports background agents, prompt queues, and live token streaming.

2. 🎨 TUI (Terminal UI) — bijutui (v2.0+)

A modern, full-screen Textual-powered terminal UI — inspired by Claude Code, Warp Terminal, and Gemini CLI.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  🟣 Biju           AI Output Area  (~65%)   │  ← Streaming markdown + syntax highlighting
│  Scrollable, rich markdown responses         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ⚠ Permission Required                       │  ← Tool approval panel (~15%, hidden by default)
│  Tool: Shell Executor  Action: run pytest    │
│  [Y] Allow  [N] Deny  [A] Always Allow       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Ask Biju anything...           Input (~10%) │  ← Enter=send, Shift+Enter=newline
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  /commands /help /clear /model   Llama 3.3  │  ← Always-visible status bar (~5%)
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

🚀 Quick Install (5 seconds)

Via NPM (easiest — works on any OS)

npm install -g biju-cli

Via Pip

pip install biju-cli

From Source (latest features)

git clone https://github.com/Prithish-22/open-source-cli.git
cd open-source-cli
pip install -e .

Then launch:

biju       # Classic CLI
bijutui    # Full TUI (Textual)

🔄 How to Update

Biju checks for updates automatically on every startup and shows a notification if a newer version is available.

Update via NPM

npm update -g biju-cli

Update via Pip

pip install --upgrade biju-cli

Update from Source (recommended — gets the very latest)

cd open-source-cli   # navigate to your cloned folder
git pull origin main
pip install -e .

💡 Tip: Biju will tell you exactly which command to run when an update is detected at startup.

🔑 Get a Free NVIDIA NIM API Key

Biju runs on NVIDIA NIM — the free tier gives you 1,000 credits (enough for thousands of AI interactions).

1. Go to build.nvidia.com
2. Sign up / Log in (free account)
3. Click any model → "Get API Key" → "Generate Key"
4. Copy your key (starts with nvapi-)
5. Set it in Biju:

   biju        # then type: /setkey

   Or edit ~/.biju_config.json directly.

🎨 TUI Keyboard Shortcuts

| Shortcut | Action | |----------|--------| | Enter | Send message | | Shift+Enter | New line in input | | Ctrl+K | Open command palette | | Ctrl+L | Clear chat | | Ctrl+M | Switch AI model | | Ctrl+S | Save session | | Ctrl+C | Cancel AI generation |

🛠️ Slash Commands

Works in both biju (classic) and bijutui (TUI):

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | /help | Show help menu with all commands, tools, and agents | | /model | Interactive model selector (30+ models) | | /clear | Clear the screen / chat | | /new | Start a fresh conversation | | /save | Save current session to disk | | /load | Load a previous session | | /history | Show message count and token estimate | | /autopilot | Toggle autopilot (skip all approval prompts) | | /allow-all | Enable full autonomy mode | | /add-dir <path> | Add a trusted directory Biju can read/write | | /init | Create biju-instructions.md for this repo | | /setkey | Add or update API keys | | /undo | Restore the last file Biju modified | | /agent <task> | Spawn a background AI agent (Classic CLI only) | | /queue add <prompt> | Queue a prompt to run automatically | | /changelog | View version history | | /exit | Quit |

🔧 AI Tools (v3.1)

Biju v3.1 gives the AI 10 first-class tools — used automatically based on the task:

| Tool | Icon | Description | |------|------|-------------| | run_command | ⚙ | Execute shell commands (with safety gating) | | read_file | 📄 | Read a file with line numbers | | write_file | ✏ | Create new files | | edit_file | 🔧 | Patch exact text in existing files (shows diff preview) | | list_dir | 📂 | Tree-formatted directory listing (replaces ls/dir) | | search_in_files | 🔍 | Search text/regex across files (replaces grep/findstr) | | read_file_range | 📄 | Read specific line range from a file | | git_status | 🌿 | Show git branch and status | | git_diff | 🌿 | Show git diff (working tree or staged) | | git_log | 🌿 | Show recent git commit history |

Edit File with Diff Preview

The edit_file tool replaces exact text matches and always shows a diff before applying:

--- Diff Preview (starting at line 12) ---
--- a/utils.py
+++ b/utils.py
-def greet(name):
-    print("Hello " + name)
+def greet(name: str) -> None:
+    print(f"Hello, {name}!")

✅ Applied edit to utils.py — replaced 2 line(s) with 2 line(s).

Safety Guardrails

Biju automatically detects destructive commands and requires explicit confirmation even in autopilot:

🛑 DESTRUCTIVE COMMAND DETECTED

  rm -rf ./build

  Risk: Permanently deletes files

This is destructive. Are you sure? [y/N]:

Detected patterns include: rm, del, rmdir, git reset --hard, git clean -f, git push --force, format, mkfs, DROP TABLE.

Trusted Directory Policy

By default, Biju gates file writes to the current working directory only. To allow writes elsewhere:

# In Biju:
/add-dir /path/to/project    # Add a trusted directory
/allow-all                    # OR disable all restrictions

🤖 Background Agents (Classic CLI)

Spawn specialized agents that run in the background while you keep chatting:

❯ /agent
# Interactive launcher — choose an agent with ↑/↓, press Enter to spawn

All 10 Agents

| Agent | Icon | Best For | |-------|------|----------| | 🔎 Researcher | | Web search, URL fetching, summarization | | 💻 Coder | | Code writing, refactoring, bug fixing | | 🌿 Git Agent | | Commits, diffs, PRs, branch management | | 📁 File Agent | | Batch file operations, rename, move | | 🧪 Test Runner | | Run tests, read failures, apply fixes in a loop | | ⚡ Shell Agent | | Autonomous shell task execution | | 🧐 Repo Scout | | Map the codebase — tree, key files, dependencies, git history | | 🩹 Patch Editor | | Precise code edits using edit_file with diff previews | | 📈 Reviewer | | Code review — bugs, risks, style, verdict | | 🔐 Security Guard | | Security scan — secrets, injection, XSS, weak crypto |

Agent Commands

/agent               # Show interactive launcher + status of running agents
/agent status        # List all running agents
/agent stop <name>   # Kill a named agent

Example Workflows

# Map a new codebase before diving in
❯ /agent
# Select: 🧐 Repo Scout
# Task: map this project

# Review your staged changes
❯ /agent
# Select: 📈 Reviewer  
# Task: review all staged changes

# Security scan before deploying
❯ /agent
# Select: 🔐 Security Guard
# Task: scan the entire codebase for vulnerabilities

Repo Context Priming

On startup, Biju automatically builds a repo summary (directory tree + key config files) and injects it into the AI's system prompt — so the AI understands your project from the first message.

Conversation Summarization

When conversations get long (>10 user turns), Biju automatically compresses older messages to stay within context limits while preserving the most recent context.

📦 Supported Models (30+ free on NVIDIA NIM)

| Category | Models | |----------|--------| | Flagship | Llama 3.3 70B, Mistral Large 3 675B, Llama 4 Maverick, DeepSeek V4 Flash | | Code & Reasoning | Dracarys 70B, GPT-OSS 20B, Nemotron Omni Reasoning | | Fast & Lightweight | Llama 3.1 8B, Llama 3.2 3B, Mistral 7B, Gemma 3N | | Vision | Llama 3.2 90B Vision, Phi-4 Multimodal | | Third-party | DeepSeek V3, Kimi (Moonshot) |

🗂️ Project Structure

open-source-cli/
├── biju/
│   ├── bijucli.py          # Classic CLI (prompt_toolkit + rich)
│   ├── tool_defs.py        # All 10 tool schemas (single source of truth)
│   └── tools.py            # All tool implementations (shared CLI + TUI)
├── tui/
│   ├── app.py              # Main Textual TUI application
│   ├── models/config.py    # Model catalog
│   ├── commands/registry.py # Slash command registry
│   ├── storage/session.py  # Session save/load
│   └── ui/
│       ├── output_panel.py    # AI output (streaming markdown)
│       ├── input_panel.py     # User input box
│       ├── permission_panel.py # Tool approval panel
│       ├── status_bar.py      # Always-visible status bar
│       └── popups.py          # Command palette, model selector
├── tests/
│   ├── test_tools.py       # 55 unit tests for tool implementations
│   └── test_tool_defs.py   # 8 schema validation tests
├── setup.py                # Package config (biju + bijutui entry points)
└── biju_tui.py             # Standalone TUI launcher

Key Architecture Notes

• biju/tool_defs.py — single source of truth for all tool schemas; both CLI and TUI import from here
• biju/tools.py — all tool implementations shared between CLI and TUI (no duplication)
• Agents in the classic CLI use all 10 tools automatically

🧪 Running Tests

cd open-source-cli
pip install pytest
python -m pytest tests/ -v
# → 63 tests, all passing

🗑️ Uninstall

# NPM
npm uninstall -g biju-cli

# Pip
pip uninstall biju-cli

📄 License

MIT — free to use, modify, and distribute.