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Introduction to AI

IntelliShell integrates with various AI providers to act as your command-line co-pilot, helping you generate, fix, and even discover commands when you're stuck. This chapter provides a high-level overview of what these features can do and how to get them up and running.

Why Use AI?

AI integration is completely optional, but enabling it unlocks a new level of productivity. Instead of just recalling commands you've already saved, you can create new ones on the fly from natural language descriptions. It's like having an expert assistant who knows the syntax for thousands of tools, ready to help you at a moment's notice.

Features Unlocked by AI

Enabling AI integration powers up several key workflows:

  • Generate Commands from Search: Can't find the command you're looking for? In the search UI (Ctrl+Space), type a description of what you want to do (e.g., "find all files larger than 10MB") and press Ctrl+I to let the AI write the command for you.

  • Fix Failing Commands: When a command fails, recall it from your history and press Ctrl+X. The AI will analyze the command and the error message to suggest a working version or explain next steps.

  • Create New Bookmarks from a Prompt: When bookmarking (Ctrl+B), you can provide a description instead of a command and press Ctrl+I. The AI will generate the command template for you, which you can then edit and save.

  • Generate Dynamic Completions: When creating a new completion provide the root command and variable, optionally describing what you need (e.g., "list all running docker containers") on the provider, then press Ctrl+I. The AI will generate the shell command to produce the suggestions.

  • Import from Anywhere: The import command gains the ability to parse unstructured text. You can point it at a blog post, a cheat sheet, or even your own shell history, and it will extract and convert commands into reusable templates.

How to Enable AI

AI features are opt-in and disabled by default. To enable them, you need to:

  1. Open Your Configuration File

    Run the following command to open your config.toml file in your default editor:

    intelli-shell config

  2. Enable AI in the Configuration

    Add or modify the [ai] section in the file to set enabled to true:

    [ai]
enabled = true

    Save and close the file.

  3. Provide an API Key

    By default, IntelliShell is configured to use Google Gemini, which has a generous free tier. You can obtain an API key from Google AI Studio and set it as an environment variable:

    export GEMINI_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

    You can add this line to your shell's profile file (e.g., ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc) to make it permanent.

💡 Note: IntelliShell supports a wide range of AI providers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and local models via Ollama. For detailed instructions on how to configure different models and customize prompts, see the AI Integration chapter in the reference section.

With AI enabled, you now have even more ways to build your command library. Let's explore how to use them in the next chapter: Populating Your Library.