howcani 🤖💭

A CLI tool that translates your natural language questions into terminal commands using AI. Because remembering command syntax is hard, and asking for help should be easy.

Fun fact: This tool was inspired by countless hours of Googling "how to tar a file" and "git revert last commit" over and over again. Now you can just ask! 🎯

Examples

Here are some real questions and their answers:

howcani find all files modified in the last 24 hours
> find . -type f -mtime -1

howcani create a new branch and switch to it
> git checkout -b new-branch

howcani compress an entire directory
> tar -czf archive.tar.gz directory/

howcani find the process using port 3000
> lsof -i :3000

Features

• 🤖 Uses OpenAI's gpt-4o model to understand your questions
• 💡 Generates precise, executable commands
• 🌐 OS-aware command generation
• 🎨 Beautiful terminal output
• 🔑 Bring Your Own API Key - uses your OpenAI account

Installation

Via npm (recommended)

# Install globally from npm
npm install -g howcani

Build from source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/zanderiscoding/howcani
cd howcani

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Link the package globally
npm link

Setup

1. Get an OpenAI API key from OpenAI's platform
2. Set your API key:

howcani set-key <key>

Usage

Just ask your question in plain English:

howcani find all JavaScript files recursively

Choose what to do with the command:

• Execute it
• Get an explanation
• Cancel

Commands

howcani <question>           # Get a command for your question
howcani set-key <key>        # Set your OpenAI API key
howcani unset-key            # Remove your OpenAI API key
howcani set-os <os>          # Set your OS for accurate commands
howcani --help               # Show help message

Requirements

• Node.js 14.x or higher
• An OpenAI API key

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to:

• Report bugs
• Suggest features
• Submit pull requests

License

MIT

Contact me

I'm on X @zanderiscoding