Folders and files
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Turn plain-English descriptions into shell commands. Powered by OpenAI or Google Gemini.
- Command generation — Get shell commands from plain English.
- Stdin piping — Pipe content for context (cat file | ask "...").
- Free-form chat — Chat directly with the AI using a - prefix.
- ask !! — Explain the last command from your history.
- ask commit — Generate a commit message for current changes and commit them.
- Dangerous command guard — Warns before running risky commands (rm -rf, sudo).
- Multi-provider — Supports OpenAI and Google Gemini.
- Persistent config — Saves settings to ~/.ask_config.
curl -fsSL https://zmsp.github.io/ask/install.sh | bashOr manually:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zmsp/ask/main/ask.sh -o /usr/local/bin/ask
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/ask
ask --setupirm https://zmsp.github.io/ask/install.ps1 | iexOr manually:
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zmsp/ask/main/ask.ps1 -OutFile "$env:USERPROFILE\bin\ask.ps1"
# Add $env:USERPROFILE\bin to your PATH, then:
ask --setup| Platform | Script | Installer |
|---|---|---|
| macOS / Linux | ask (bash) | install.sh |
| Windows | ask.ps1 (PowerShell 5.1+) | install.ps1 |
| Tool | Install |
|---|---|
| bash 4+ | Pre-installed on macOS/Linux |
| curl | brew install curl / apt install curl |
| jq | brew install jq / apt install jq |
| AI API key | OpenAI or Gemini |
ask "list all .log files modified in the last 7 days"
ask "restart nginx if it's not running"
ask "find the 5 largest files in my home directory"Suggested: find ~ -type f -printf '%s %p\n' | sort -rn | head -5 Run this command? (y/n): y
ask -q "What does HEAD~3 mean in git?"
ask -e "Explain the difference between CMD and ENTRYPOINT in Docker"cat error.log | ask "why is this failing?"
git diff | ask "summarise these changes"
cat config.yml | ask "is anything misconfigured here?"ls -la /etc/hosts
ask !!
# → Explains ls, -l (long format), -a (hidden files), and the pathask commitGit status: M src/index.js M README.md Suggested commit message: Update index.js routing and expand README usage section Commit with this message? (y/n): y [main 3f2a1b4] Update index.js routing and expand README usage section
ask "recursively delete all files in /tmp/cache"
Suggested:
rm -rf /tmp/cache/*
⚠ This command looks dangerous. Type yes to run, anything else cancels.
Run ANYWAY? yesConfiguration is stored in ~/.ask_config (user-readable only).
Run the interactive wizard:
ask --setupOr edit the file directly:
# ~/.ask_config
provider=openai # openai | gemini
model=gpt-4.1-nano # leave blank for cheapest default
max_tokens=200
openai_api_key=sk-...
gemini_api_key=AIza...Environment variables always take priority over the config file:
export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."
export GEMINI_API_KEY="AIza..."
export VERBOSE=true # print debug info| Provider | Default model | Price (input/output per 1M tokens) |
|---|---|---|
| openai | gpt-4.1-nano | $0.10 / $0.40 |
| gemini | gemini-2.5-flash-lite | $0.10 / $0.40 |
OpenAI models: gpt-4.1-nano · gpt-4.1-mini · gpt-4.1 · gpt-4o-mini
Gemini models: gemini-2.5-flash-lite · gemini-2.5-flash · gemini-2.5-pro
MIT © Zobair