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Ask Terminal

A beginner-friendly terminal that explains every command before you run it. Understand what you're doing, build confidence, and never accidentally break anything.

Ask Terminal Screenshot

Features

Plain English Explanations

Every command is broken down and explained before you run it. No more guessing what chmod 755 actually does.

Safety Indicators

Color-coded warnings show if a command is safe, needs caution, or could be dangerous:

  • Green - Safe commands (ls, cd, pwd, cat...)
  • Yellow - Caution commands (cp, mv, mkdir, git...)
  • Red - Dangerous commands (rm, sudo, chmod...)

Skill Levels

Progress at your own pace with three skill levels:

Level Commands Allowed Direct Typing
Beginner Safe only Draft Panel only
Intermediate Safe + Moderate Optional toggle
Advanced All commands Always enabled

Tab Completion

Smart autocomplete for commands and file paths. Press Tab to see suggestions.

Typo Detection

Misspell a command? Ask Terminal suggests what you might have meant.

Installation

macOS

Download the latest .dmg from Releases and drag to Applications.

Build from Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/askterminal/ask-terminal.git
cd ask-terminal

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run in development mode
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

Tech Stack

  • Electron - Cross-platform desktop framework
  • Vue 3 - Frontend framework
  • Pinia - State management
  • xterm.js - Terminal emulator
  • node-pty - Pseudo-terminal
  • Tailwind CSS - Styling

Command Safety Classification

Safe

ls, cd, pwd, echo, cat, head, tail, grep, find, man, history, which, whoami, date, cal

Moderate

cp, mv, mkdir, touch, npm, git, curl, wget, tar, zip, unzip

Dangerous

rm, sudo, chmod, chown, kill, mkfs, dd, > (redirect overwrite)

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut Action
Enter Run command
Tab Autocomplete
Ctrl+C / Cmd+C Stop running process
Cmd+, Open Settings

License

MIT

Links

About

AskTerminal wraps a full power command-line terminal with training wheels for the complete beginner.

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