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tshll

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turtle shell · crawl into the nest · local LLM chat in your terminal

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Setup

pip install -r requirements.txt   # textual + ollama
ollama serve                       # start the nest (separate terminal)
ollama pull llama3                 # pull a model if you haven't
python app.py                      # launch tshll

Keybindings

Key	Action
Enter	Send message / dismiss splash
Ctrl+N	New shell (conversation)
Ctrl+M	Switch model (the nest)
Ctrl+B	Toggle sidebar
Ctrl+L	Clear current shell
Ctrl+J	Focus input bar
Ctrl+Q	Quit
Esc	Close modal

Themes

Ctrl+T toggles between two themes:

• Electron Highlighter — full dark theme, explicit colors
• Terminal native — inherits your terminal's own colorscheme ($background, $primary, etc.)

If you want to default to terminal native, swap CSS_PATH = THEME_ELECTRON to CSS_PATH = THEME_TERMINAL in app.py.

File structure

tshll/
├── app.py                # application
├── theme_electron.tcss   # electron highlighter theme
├── theme_terminal.tcss   # terminal-native bare theme
├── requirements.txt
└── README.md

Branding notes

• tshll — turtle shell (drop the vowels, keep the vibe)
• the nest — what the local model backend is called
• shells — individual conversations
• Turtle emoji 🐢 used throughout as the brand mark