shai

Want to get something done in the shell but can't quite remember how? Too shy to ask your coworkers? Too deep in the AI sauce to Google it? shai has your back.

Installation

Run the following command in your terminal. This will download the correct shai binary for your system, make it executable, and move it to /usr/local/bin.

curl -fsSL https://github.com/timkalan/shai/raw/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

To enable shell integration (for now, zsh only), add this at the end of your .zshrc. Note that currently, you need to have GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_API_KEY in your environment.

# or just use a .env file
export GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_API_KEY=<your-api-key>

# Enable immediate history writing (recommended for best results)
setopt INC_APPEND_HISTORY

eval "$(shai --zsh-init)"

and then restart your shell (or source ~/.zshrc).

Usage

Just call shai with your prompt and let the magic happen. shai uses the gemini-2.5-flash-lite model so you can use a free api key.

History Awareness

shai can read your shell history to provide better context for command generation. It automatically reads recent commands from your .zsh_history file and includes them in the AI prompt (excluding common noise like cd, ls, pwd).

Note: For the best experience with history awareness, ensure you have setopt INC_APPEND_HISTORY in your .zshrc (shown in installation section above). This ensures commands are written to history immediately, making recent commands available to shai.

Disable history:

# Per-command
shai --no-history <prompt>

# Globally via environment variable
export SHAI_HISTORY_DISABLE=true

Configure history lines:

# Default is 50 lines, maximum 10 commands sent to AI
export SHAI_HISTORY_LINES=100

Debug mode (see what history is being used):

shai --debug <prompt>

Development

Testing Widget Changes

Since shai's magic is in the Zsh widget (the Enter key interception), you need to reload it when making changes to src/zsh-init.ts:

# Quick install and reload for development
deno task install && eval "$(shai --zsh-init)"

# Now test it:
shai list files in current directory

Available tasks:

• deno task shai <prompt> - Run locally without compiling
• deno task install - Compile and install to /usr/local/bin
• deno task compile - Just compile the binary
• deno task all - Format, lint, and type-check (run before pushing)

Roadmap

• History: Give shai access to more context
• Models: We should allow our users to pick their models/providers
• Bash Support: Add init script and support for Bash shell.
• Explain Mode: Add a flag to explain the generated command before running it.
• Self Update: Add a command to upgrade to the latest version automatically.