AI CLI Tools¶

AI-assisted development from the terminal. Generate commands, explain code, automate tasks.

Claude Code¶

Interactive AI coding agent in the terminal:

claude

Start with a specific task:

claude "refactor auth middleware to use JWT"

Run in non-interactive mode for scripting:

claude -p "explain this error" < error.log

Resume the most recent conversation:

claude --continue

Install: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Get command suggestions from natural language:

gh copilot suggest "find all files larger than 100MB"

Explain a command you're unsure about:

gh copilot explain "tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz"

Install: gh extension install github/gh-copilot

Send a prompt to any LLM from the terminal:

llm "write a bash function to retry a command 3 times"

Pipe content for analysis:

cat error.log | llm "summarize the errors and suggest fixes"

Use with different models:

llm -m claude-sonnet-4-6 "review this code for security issues" < auth.py

Install: pip install llm · brew install llm

AI pair programming — edits files directly:

aider src/auth.py src/middleware.py

Start with a specific model:

aider --model claude-sonnet-4-6

Install: pip install aider-chat

These patterns work with any AI CLI tool:

Pass a diff for review:

git diff | claude -p "review this diff for bugs"

Generate a commit message:

git diff --staged | llm "write a concise commit message for these changes"

Explain a complex command:

echo "find . -name '*.log' -mtime +30 -exec gzip {} \;" | gh copilot explain