Ask-CLI: Local AI Terminal Assistant

A lightweight bash function that leverages a local, Dockerized LLM to translate natural language requests into raw terminal commands.

Instead of switching context to a web browser to figure out complex ffmpeg, tar, or find syntax, ask brings the AI directly into your terminal.

Key Features

• Privacy-First & Local: Runs entirely locally using Ollama inside a Docker container. No data is sent to cloud APIs.
• Safe Execution Design: Unlike other AI CLI tools that blindly execute generated commands, ask pushes the AI's response directly into your terminal's history buffer (history -s). You simply press the [UP] arrow to reveal, review, and safely execute the command.
• Strict Prompt Engineering: The system prompt is heavily restricted to prevent the LLM from generating markdown, backticks, or conversational filler, ensuring only the raw command is passed to the history buffer.

Prerequisites

• Docker
• A bash-compatible terminal

Installation

1. Set up the local Ollama container

This script relies on a local Ollama container named ollama. If you do not already have one running, you can spin it up and pull the model with the following commands:

# Start the Ollama container
sudo docker run -d -v ollama:/root/.ollama -p 11434:11434 --name ollama ollama/ollama

# Pull the specific model used by the script
sudo docker exec -it ollama ollama run gemma4

(Note: You can easily swap this out for llama3, mistral, or any other model by editing the script).

2. Install the Script

Clone the repository and append the function to your .bashrc or .bash_aliases file.

git clone https://github.com/rndchris/ask-cli.git
cd ask-cli
cat ask.sh >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Usage

Simply type ask followed by what you want to achieve in plain English.

$ ask Extract audio from video.mp4
Asking AI...

✅ Command generated! Press the [UP] arrow to reveal it.

Press the [UP] arrow, and the exact command will appear on your prompt line, ready to be executed:

$ ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn -c:a libmp3lame audio.mp3

How it Works Under the Hood

The script securely passes your prompt to the local Docker container alongside a strict system message:

You are a CLI expert. Output ONLY the raw terminal command.
Rules:
- NO markdown formatting.
- NO backticks.
- NO explanations.
- NO introductory text.

By leveraging history -s "$response", the script manipulates the bash history stack without executing the string, providing a necessary human-in-the-loop security checkpoint.