Shell Whiz is an AI assistant for the command line. It will help you find the right command to solve your task. This way, you can save your time and effort without diving into documentation, man pages, or searching the web.

Installation 🛠️

To install Shell Whiz, run the following command:

pip install shell-whiz

Or, if you prefer to use pipx:

pipx install shell-whiz

This will add the sw command to your PATH.

To use the assistant you'll need an API key from OpenAI. Obtain this key by visiting https://platform.openai.com/api-keys. Once you have the key, you can set it either by running sw config or by setting the OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable.

Getting started ✨

You can run the assistant directly using sw ask, but I recommend creating an alias for it. For example, you can add the following line to the bottom of your ~/.bashrc file:

alias '??'='sw ask'

PowerShell users can create a function in their PowerShell profile.

function ?? {
  sw ask `
    -s (Get-Command powershell.exe).Source `
    -m gpt-4o `
    -p "I use PowerShell on a daily basis" `
    @Args
}

You can also create a function that allows you to save executed commands in history. Here are the functions for Bash and Zsh:

# ~/.bashrc

whiz-shell() {
  TMPFILE=$(mktemp)
  trap 'rm -f $TMPFILE' EXIT
  if sw ask -o "$TMPFILE" "$@"; then
    if [ -e "$TMPFILE" ]; then
      SW_CMD=$(cat "$TMPFILE")
      history -s $(history 1 | cut -d' ' -f4-)
      history -s "$SW_CMD"
      eval "$SW_CMD"
    else
      echo "Sorry, something went wrong." >&2
    fi
  else
    return 1
  fi
}

alias '??'='whiz-shell'

# ~/.zshrc

whiz-shell() {
  TMPFILE=$(mktemp)
  trap 'rm -f $TMPFILE' EXIT
  if sw ask -o "$TMPFILE" "$@"; then
    if [ -e "$TMPFILE" ]; then
      SW_CMD=$(cat "$TMPFILE")
      print -s "$SW_CMD"
      eval "$SW_CMD"
    else
      echo "Sorry, something went wrong." >&2
    fi
  else
    return 1
  fi
}

alias '??'='whiz-shell'

To track API usage and costs, periodically visit the OpenAI API Usage page.

Advanced usage 🚀

The assistant can be easily configured for any task using command line arguments.

The most powerful option is -p "..." or --preferences "...". This setting can be used to select the shell environment or even the language of the assistant's responses. The default value is I use Bash on Linux.

Run sw ask --help for more information.