hai ≡ Hacker AI

A CLI (hai) with a REPL for hackers using LLMs.

Highlights

• ⚡️ Starts in 30ms (on my machine).
• 🗯 Run many instances for simultaneous conversations.
• 🤖 Supports AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, and Ollama (local) all in a single conversation.
• 🕶 Go incognito with a simple flag.
• ⚙ Give AI the power to run programs on your computer.
• 🍝 Share AI prompt-pasta publicly using the task repository.
• 📂 Load images, code, or text into the conversation.
• ☁ Store and share data on the cloud for easy access by AIs.
• 🛠 Open source: Apache License 2.0
• 💻 Supports Linux and macOS. Windows needs testing (help!).

Installation

Installer [Linux, macOS]

curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/braincore/hai-cli/refs/heads/master/scripts/hai-installer.sh | sh

Alt: Download binary [Linux, macOS, Windows]

Go to releases and download the version for your machine.

Alt: Build from source [Linux, macOS, Windows]

cargo install hai-cli

Features

Fast

I got tired of opening up browser windows to chat with AIs.

• Run hai and immediately drop into an AI conversation prompt.
• Run hai in as many terminals as you'd like to have multiple simultaneous conversations.
• Start a new conversation with /new (/n for short).

Multi-AI

I wasn't using the right AI for the right job because it was too annoying to switch around.

• /ai [model] - Switch with one command (tab-completion and abbreviations supported)
• Switch between OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, and local Ollama models

[0]: /ai 4om
Using AI Model: gpt-4o-mini

[0]: /ai sonnet
Using AI Model: sonnet-3.7

[0]: /ai r1
Using AI Model: deepseek-reasoner

[0]: /ai flash
Using AI Model: flash-2.0

[0]: /ai ollama/gemma3:27b
Using AI Model: gemma3:27b

• Switch mid conversation

[0] How many "r"s in strawberry?

↓↓↓
There are two 'r's in the word "strawberry."

[2]: /ai o3-mini
Using AI Model: o3-mini

[2]: Uhh, your thoughts?

Authenticating with AI Providers

You have two options:

1. Set an API key for each AI provider you plan to use.
   • via config: ~/.hai/hai.toml
   • via CLI: $ hai set-key <provider> <key>
   • via REPL: /set-key <provider> <key>
2. Subscribe to hai router and your account will automatically work with OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and Google. Learn more with /account-subscribe

Incognito

I wasn't asking all the crazy-person questions I wanted to.

• Run hai --incognito (hai -i for short).
• Local conversation history isn't saved.
• Since AI Providers keep logs of your conversations, consider configuring a local ollama setup in ~/.hai/hai.toml and set default_incognito_ai_model (e.g. ollama/gemma3:27b).

Tasks

I got tired of sending AI prompt-pasta to friends and coworkers.

• A hai-task is a prompt-on-steroids that can be published publicly (/task-publish <username>/<name>)
• A hai task is a list of hai REPL commands that setup context for a conversation.
• A task is a list of hai REPL commands that setup context for a conversation.
  • Open files, fetch URLs, execute commands, ask the user questions, choose & prompt the AI, ...
• /task <username>/<name> - Run a task and enter task-mode
  • /new (/n) - If in task-mode, resets back to a clean task.
• /task-view <username>/<name> - View a task without running it

!Tools

I got tired of being the people-person between the AI and my terminal.

!sh <prompt> - Ask the AI to execute shell commands directly.

data.db
data.db-shm
data.db-wal
hai.toml

[2]: !sh list tables

↓↓↓
sqlite3 ~/.hai/data.db ".tables"
⚙ ⚙ ⚙
account          asset            task_step_cache
ask_cache        misc

If I feel like being a manager I provide valuable oversight with !?sh

[0]: !?sh delete evidence.txt

↓↓↓
rm evidence.txt
⚙ ⚙ ⚙
[QUESTION] Execute? y/[n]:

• !? - Also gives the AI freedom to respond to you without executing the tool.
• Other tools: !py (Python), !shscript (shell script), and !clip (copy to clipboard).
• !'<cmd>' <prompt> - Support for any program that AI can pass stdin to. Example below:

[0]: !'uv run --python python3 --with geopy -' distance from sf to nyc

↓↓↓

from geopy.distance import geodesic

sf_coords = (37.7749, -122.4194)  # San Francisco coordinates
nyc_coords = (40.7128, -74.0060)   # New York City coordinates

distance = geodesic(sf_coords, nyc_coords).miles
print(distance)

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

2571.9457567914133

Assets [Experimental]

I'm tired of SaaS data silos being the biggest impediment to feeding my data to AIs the way I want.

Assets are objects stored in the cloud for your direct and indirect use via AIs.

• /asset <name> - Open asset in editor (create if does not exist)
• /asset-new <name> - Create a new asset and open editor
• /asset-edit <name> - Open existing asset in editor
• Create/edit will open a text editor defined in ~/.hai/hai.toml (default vim).
• /asset-{import,export} <name> <path> - Import / export from files
• asset-view <name> - Add an asset to the conversation for the AI to use.
• /asset-load <name> - Add an asset without printing its contents.

Asset names can mimic file paths with slashes.

Public

Public assets start with a frontslash followed by your username (/<username>):

• Here's how I (ken) create a public file: /asset-new /ken/public.txt
  • Here's how I create a private file: /asset-new private.txt
• Anyone can see it with: /asset-view /ken/public.txt

Search

Assets can be listed by prefix:

/asset-list todo_docs/2025-

Or, they can be searched semantically:

/asset-search cooking salmon

Advanced Usage

See all client commands with /help (/h).

Account(s) management

• /account - See your current account
• /account-new - Create a new account
• /account-login - Login to an account
• /account <username> - Switch account
• /account-subscribe - Subscribe to support the project
• /account-balance - See AI credits remaining

Tools

Nothing makes me more secure as a human than the neverending mistakes AI makes when using tools. Use a lone ! to repeat the previous tool command & prompt. Often, the AI will read the error message and fix itself:

[0]: !sh what's the weather in santa clara, ca

↓↓↓

curl -s 'wttr.in/Santa+Clara,CA?format=%C+%t'

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

Unknown location; please try ~37.2333253,-121.6846349

[3]: !

↓↓↓

curl -s 'wttr.in/Santa+Clara?format=%C+%t'

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

Partly cloudy +51°F

Or, if you need to change your prompt while using the same tool, use ! <prompt> (note that sh is omitted):

[6]: ! how about tokyo?

↓↓↓

curl -s 'wttr.in/Tokyo?format=%C+%t'

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

Clear +59°F

Tool mode

If you find yourself using the same tool over-and-over, you can enter tool-mode by specifying a tool without a prompt (e.g. !sh).

[0]: !sh

Entering tool mode; All messages are treated as prompts for !sh. Use `!exit` when done

[0] !sh: what's the weather in alexandria, egypt?

↓↓↓

curl -s 'http://wttr.in/Alexandria?format=%C+%t+%w'

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

Clear +77°F ↙11mph

A more realistic example is when using hai with psql (postgres client) to avoid typing in the connection string each time.

[0]: !'psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U ken -d grapdb_1'

Entering tool mode; All messages are treated as prompts for !'psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U ken -d grapdb_1'. Use `!exit` when done

[3] !'psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U ken -d grapdb_1': what db users are there?

↓↓↓

SELECT usename FROM pg_user;

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

 usename
---------
 ken

[5] !'psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U ken -d grapdb_1': is query logging turned on?

↓↓↓

SHOW logging_collector;

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

 logging_collector
-------------------
 off

When publishing tasks, you can place users directly into tool-mode by making it the final command in your task's command list. This approach is helpful when writing tasks for less technical folks.

Lastly, variables can come in handy:

[11]: /setvar db psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U ken -d grapdb_1

[12]: !'$db' what version is the db?

↓↓↓

SELECT version();

⚙ ⚙ ⚙
...

For general software development

Use /load <path> to load files (e.g. code) as context for the AI. You can use globs, e.g. /load src/**/*.rs.

Instead of /new, you can use /reset (/r) to keep context from /load while clearing the rest of the conversation.

In a similar vein, any /pin <message> is kept around on /reset.

For Python development

When using the !py tool, the system python will be used unless a virtualenv (.venv) is available anywhere in the current directory tree.

Cost estimation

The prompt shows you the number of tokens in your current conversation. Use /cost to see how much your conversation has cost so far and the input cost of your next prompt. Useful when you've loaded lots of files for context.

Task creation & publishing

Tasks are defined in toml. For example, here's the ken/strava-api task defined in a file on my machine called strava-api.toml.

name = "ken/strava-api"
version = "1.0.0"

description = "Playground for the Strava API"

steps = [
    "/load-url https://developers.strava.com/swagger/swagger.json",
    "/pin Loaded Strava API's swagger definition.",
    "/pin Next, you'll need an access token from https://www.strava.com/settings/api",
    "/ask-human(secret=true,cache=true) What's you're strava access token?",
    """\
/pin When making requests to the Strava API from the shell, use HTTPie (`http`)
with the `--pretty=all` flag. If unavailable, fallback to curl.
""",
    "/pin Because the swagger definition is large, be wary of the cost",
    "/cost",
    "/pin Entering !sh tool mode to make it easier to make API requests",
    "!sh",
]

• name - This must be your username followed by the name of your task. All tasks are namespaced by a username to avoid duplicates and confusion.
• version - Must be a semantic version (semver).
• description - Explain what the task is for. Helps for task search.
• steps - Every step is something you could have typed yourself into the CLI. At the conclusion of the steps, the user takes over with the context fully populated.

You can test your task by referencing it by file path. To avoid ambiguity with tasks in the repo, the file path must begin with ./, /, or ~:

/task ./path/to/strava-api.toml

When your task is ready to publish, run:

/task-publish ./path/to/strava-api.toml

The version must be greater than the latest currently in the repo.

Anyone can run your task by using its name:

/task ken/strava-api

Task-specific commands

There are some hai-repl command that are specifically made for tasks:

• /ask-human <prompt> - Ask the question.
• /ask-human(secret=true) <prompt> - User's answer is treated as a secret and hidden.
• /ask-human(cache=true) <prompt> - When a user runs the task again, their previous answer is used. /task-forget to reset.
• /set-mask-secrets on - AI output that includes the secret is masked in the terminal.

An example use case is asking the user for their API token to a service. This way the AI can formulate API requests with it and the token itself is hidden when tool-invocations are printed to the terminal.

• /exec <cmd> - Execute a command on the local machine. The user is always prompted yes/no.
• /exec(cache=true) <cmd> - When a user runs the task again, the output from the previous invocation is used.

An example use of /exec is to make the first task command /exec(cache=true) ffmpeg -version so that the AI knows to tweak its fmpeg command-line with the exact version in mind.

• /prompt <message> - Makes it explicit that the line is prompting the AI.
• /prompt(cache=true) <message> - When a user runs the task again, the AI output from the previous invocation is used instead of re-prompting.

The cache is useful for avoiding the delay of an AI response and reducing costs for expensive prompts.

• /task-include <name|path> - Rather than clearing the conversation and entering a new task-mode, this command injects tasks commands into the current conversation. If you find yourself giving the same instructions to the AI over-and-over again, just make a (pseudo-)task with your instructions and include it any time even if you're in another task-mode. For example, I have a ken/be-terse task and ken/code-preference task that I inject as necessary.

Testing

Before publishing, you can load a task from a path on your local machine by referencing it with a path-prefix such as dot-slash (./), home (~), or root (/). For example, assuming api.toml is a task:

/task ./src/app/api.toml

Command-line options

• hai task <task_name> - Immediately drops user into task-mode.
• hai bye '<cmd>'... - Run any command(s) as if using the CLI without entering the CLI. Use single-quotes to minimize issues. Multiple commands can be specified. All printouts go to the terminal and hai exits at the end.
  • e.g. hai bye '!sh convert apple1.jpg to webp'
  • If running in non-interactive mode (e.g. as a cron job), use -y to automatically confirm all user prompts.
• hai -i - Enter incognito mode to keep no history. Pair with default_incognito_ai_model to a local LLM (e.g. ollama) to be fully incognito.
• hai -u <username> - Guarantees you use a specific account rather than the last active account. Pairs well with hai task ... and hai bye ... for multi-account setups.
• hai set-key <provider> <key> - Set API keys for providers (openai, anthropic, deepseek, google). You don't need to do this if you've subscribed to hai.

More config options

See ~/.hai/hai.toml for all options. Some options to highlight:

• Set tool_confirm = true to require your confirmation before executing any tool. Use this if you're worried about your AI going rogue.
• By default, temperature is set to 0 across all AIs. That's hacker-friendly because it works uniformly across providers (minus some reasoning AIs) and optimizes for highest likelihood rather than whimsical exploration. Set default_ai_temperature_to_absolute_zero = false to use the AI providers default or specify your own with /temperature.
• Set check_for_updates = false to disable anonymous version checks when hai runs. When disabled, hai makes no network requests that aren't initiated by you.

Asking the AI to use the REPL

If I'm feeling lazy, I'll ask the AI to write the hai-repl commands:

[7]: !hai use /load-url to get hacker news frontpage and use /prompt to ask the AI to write a numbered-list of headlines

↓↓↓

- /load-url https://news.ycombinator.com/
- /prompt Please write a numbered list of the headlines extracted from the Hacker News frontpage HTML code.

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

[QUESTION] Execute? y/[n]: y
Pushed 2 command(s) into queue

---

hai-tool[10]: /load-url https://news.ycombinator.com/

hai-tool[11]: /prompt Please write a numbered list of the headlines extracted from the Hacker News frontpage HTML code.

↓↓↓

1. **Kerning, the Hard Way**
2. **Samsung Q990D unresponsive after 1020 firmware update**
3. **Decrypting encrypted files from Akira ransomware using a bunch of GPUs**
4. **Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was minus 280° F**
...

!hai recursion

Some AIs (sonnet-3.7 was used below; gpt-4o never works) are able to work out whether they need to re-prompt themselves to act on intermediate information.

In this example, only the first command is prompted by the user. The rest, prefixed by hai-tool[ ]:, are prompted by the AI. For brevity, user confirmations are omitted.

[0]: !hai get a random number. if it is even, ask the AI how large the sun is. if it is odd, delete `file1.txt`.

↓↓↓

- !py Generate a random number and determine if it's even or odd
- !hai Based on the random number generated, if it's even, ask how large the sun is. If it's odd, delete file1.txt

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

Pushed 2 command(s) into queue

hai-tool[3]: !py Generate a random number and determine if it's even or odd

↓↓↓

import random

# Generate a random number between 1 and 100
random_number = random.randint(1, 100)

# Check if the number is even or odd
if random_number % 2 == 0:
    result = "even"
else:
    result = "odd"

print(f"The random number is: {random_number}")
print(f"The number is {result}")

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

The random number is: 86
The number is even

hai-tool[6]: !hai Based on the random number generated, if it's even, ask how large the sun is. If it's odd, delete file1.txt

↓↓↓

- /prompt How large is the sun? Please provide information about its diameter, volume, and mass compared to Earth.


⚙ ⚙ ⚙

Pushed 1 command(s) into queue

hai-tool[9]: /prompt How large is the sun? Please provide information about its diameter, volume, and mass compared to Earth.

↓↓↓

# The Size of the Sun

The Sun is enormously large compared to Earth. Here are the key measurements:

- Sun's diameter: approximately 1.39 million kilometers (864,000 miles)
- Sun's volume: approximately 1.41 × 10^18 cubic kilometers
- Sun's mass: approximately 1.989 × 10^30 kilograms

Open Source

I don't like running software that I and others can't audit the code of.

The hai CLI is available under the Apache 2.0 license. You can freely use it, modify it, and contribute back.

Security warning

The primary attack vector to defend against is a published task that's crafted to delete or exfiltrate your data. Be careful when running any task. All potentially dangerous commands require a "yes/no" confirmation.

Specifically, tasks may /exec commands on your machine which can both delete and exfiltrate data (e.g. make an http request). Tasks may /load data that can then be exfiltrated. Tasks may use a tool (e.g. !sh or !py) which can delete and exfiltrate. Tasks may use the !hai tool which may generate a list of commands that can delete and exfiltrate.