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A lightweight AI assistant hotkey utility for Windows. Captures clipboard text and/or screenshot, sends it to the Groq API, and returns the answer instantly via tooltip and clipboard.

Files

src/
  assistant.ahk           -- Hotkey definitions and IPC orchestration (AHK v2)
  auto_sender.ahk         -- Auxiliary automation script
  gemini.ps1              -- Groq API backend (PowerShell)
  groq_api_key.local.txt  -- Your personal API key (git-ignored)
  groq_api_key.txt        -- Placeholder template (committed, not used if placeholder)

Hotkeys

Hotkey	Mode	Input	Output
Ctrl+2	Casual	clipboard text and/or image	3-5 sentence natural answer (clipboard only, no tooltip)
Ctrl+3	Single-choice	clipboard text and/or image	One letter: B (clipboard + tooltip)
Ctrl+4	Multiple-choice	clipboard text and/or image	Letter list: A, C (clipboard + tooltip)
Ctrl+5	Wiki	clipboard text and/or image	Full encyclopedia answer (clipboard only, no tooltip)
Ctrl+9	Re-read	--	Shows + copies last saved answer, no API call (clipboard + tooltip)

All modes copy the result to the clipboard. Modes 3, 4, and 9 also display it as a tooltip for 5 seconds.

Setup

1. Install AutoHotkey v2

Download from https://www.autohotkey.com — install the v2 branch.

2. Add your Groq API key

Create src/groq_api_key.local.txt and paste your key (no quotes, no spaces):

gsk_yourkeyhere

Get a free key at https://console.groq.com

3. Fix encoding on non-English Windows (required for Russian/Kazakh locale) (optional if you use English locale)

PowerShell defaults to the regional code page (e.g. Windows-1251) when reading .ps1 files without a BOM. Run this once after placing gemini.ps1 in the src folder:

$p = "C:\path\to\src\gemini.ps1"
[IO.File]::WriteAllText($p, (Get-Content $p -Raw), [Text.UTF8Encoding]::new($true))

4. Run

Double-click src/assistant.ahk. The AHK tray icon confirms it is active.

How it works

Ctrl+Number   ->  AHK reads existing clipboard text  ->  %TEMP%\gemini_input.txt
              ->  AHK captures clipboard image (RunWait, synchronous)
                       ->  %TEMP%\gemini_image.jpg
              ->  AHK launches gemini.ps1 (RunWait, blocks until exit)
                       ->  PS writes gemini.lock   (acquired)
                       ->  PS calls Groq API
                       ->  PS writes gemini_output.txt
                       ->  PS deletes gemini.lock  (released)
              ->  AHK reads output
              ->  result copied to clipboard + shown in tooltip for 5 s

The lock file is a write-complete sentinel. AHK reads the output only after RunWait returns, by which point all PS file handles are closed. No sleep-based polling anywhere in the flow.

Models

Input	Model	Notes
Text only	llama-3.3-70b-versatile	Best free text model on Groq as of 2026
Image (with or without text)	meta-llama/llama-4-scout-17b-16e-instruct	Only production vision model on Groq

API key lookup order

1. GROQ_API_KEY environment variable
2. src/groq_api_key.local.txt (recommended, git-ignored)
3. src/groq_api_key.txt (skipped if it still contains the placeholder text)