ChatGPT Shell Script

ch is a POSIX-compliant shell script/library:

• Access ChatGPT from your terminal, no more context switching to browser tabs.
• Integrate ChatGPT requests with standard shell tools like pipes, redirects and grep.
• Source ch in your own shell scripts to use it as a library. See tests/run.sh for an example.

System Requirements

1. An operating system with a POSIX-compatible shell. Tested on: Linux, MacOS, BSD, Android (via Termux).
2. A valid OpenAI ChatGPT API key. Create one at OpenAI.
3. The curl and jq utilities to be installed.
4. An Internet connection.

Usage

ch [Option]

Options
  a|again            in case of error, send current chat again
  c|current <title>  switch the current chat to a differerent title
  g|gen              generate title for current chat
  h|help             print this help
  p|print            print out the current chat
  l|list             list all chat titles
  n|new <prompt>     start a new chat
  r|reply <reply>    reply to the current chat
  t|title            print the current chat title

  Arguments in <angle brackets> are read from STDIN if not present.

Example

$ ./ch n is it possible to '"delete"' lines of output in a terminal, or simulate it using ANSI escape sequences?
Yes, it is possible to "delete" lines of output in a terminal or simulate it using ANSI escape sequences.

Here's an example of how you can simulate deleting lines in a terminal using ANSI escape sequences in Python:
...

I also recorded a video with more background on the rationale for ch and example uses.

Environment Variables

Manipulate these to tune the behavior of ch. Default values are shown (in parens).

CH_ANS  # bold replies? (yes for tty)
CH_AUT  # autogen chat title (yes for tty)
CH_CON  # connect timeout (5 secs)
CH_CUR  # filepointer to the current conversation (CH_DIR/.cur)
CH_DIR  # save chats here ($TMPDIR/chgpt)
CH_FRM  # response format (text)
CH_KEY  # openai key (OPENAI_API_KEY)
CH_LOG  # error log name (CH_DIR/.err)
CH_MOD  # model name (gpt-3.5-turbo)
CH_PRE  # filename containing preamble to include in new chats
CH_RES  # response timeout (30 secs)
CH_TEM  # chat temperature (1)
CH_TIT  # chat title
CH_TOP  # top_p nucleus sampling (1)
CH_URL  # openai API URL (https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions)

Perplexity LLMs

ch works with any compatible chat completion API that has the same interface as ChatGPT. All you have to do is override the appropriate environment variables. I created a shell script called ppx which wraps ch with the values to call a Perplexity online LLM instead of ChatGPT:

#!/bin/sh
export CH_AUT=0                                            # no autogen titles
export CH_DIR="/tmp/ppxty"                                 # save to alt dir
export CH_KEY="$PPLXTY_API_KEY"                            # ppx API key
export CH_MOD="sonar-small-online"                         # ppx model name
export CH_URL="https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions" # ppx API URL
ch "$@"

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2023 David Farrell

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

¹ Depends on usage, in my case I went from spending $20 to less than $2 per month.