A snappy, keyboard-centric terminal user interface for interacting with large language models.
Chat with Claude 3, ChatGPT, and local models like Llama 3, Phi 3, Mistral and Gemma.

elia is an application for interacting with LLMs which runs entirely in your terminal, and is designed to be keyboard-focused, efficient, and fun to use! It stores your conversations in a local SQLite database, and allows you to interact with a variety of models. Speak with proprietary models such as ChatGPT and Claude, or with local models running through ollama or LocalAI.

Install Elia with pipx:

pipx install elia-chat

Depending on the model you wish to use, you may need to set one or more environment variables (e.g. OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, etc).

Launch Elia from the command line:

elia

Launch a new chat inline (under your prompt) with -i/--inline:

elia -i "What is the Zen of Python?"

Launch a new chat in full-screen mode:

elia "Tell me a cool fact about lizards!"

Specify a model via the command line using -m/--model:

elia -m gpt-4o

Options can be combined - here's how you launch a chat with Gemini 1.5 Flash in inline mode.

elia -i -m gemini/gemini-1.5-flash-latest "How do I call Rust code from Python?"

1. Install ollama.
2. Pull the model you require, e.g. ollama pull llama3.
3. Run the local ollama server: ollama serve.
4. Add the model to the config file (see below).

The location of the configuration file is noted at the bottom of the options window (ctrl+o).

The example file below shows the available options, as well as examples of how to add new models.

# the ID or name of the model that is selected by default on launch
default_model = "gpt-4o"
# the system prompt on launch
system_prompt = "You are a helpful assistant who talks like a pirate."
# change the syntax highlighting theme of code in messages
# choose from https://pygments.org/styles/
# defaults to "monokai"
message_code_theme = "dracula"

# example of adding local llama3 support
# only the `name` field is required here.
[[models]]
name = "ollama/llama3"

# example of a model running on a local server, e.g. LocalAI
[[models]]
name = "openai/some-model"
api_base = "https://localhost:8080/v1"
api_key = "api-key-if-required"

# example of add a groq model, showing some other fields
[[models]]
name = "groq/llama2-70b-4096"
display_name = "Llama 2 70B"  # appears in UI
provider = "Groq"  # appears in UI
temperature = 1.0  # high temp = high variation in output
max_retries = 0  # number of retries on failed request

# example of multiple instances of one model, e.g. you might
# have a 'work' OpenAI org and a 'personal' org.
[[models]]
id = "work-gpt-3.5-turbo"
name = "gpt-3.5-turbo"
display_name = "GPT 3.5 Turbo (Work)"

[[models]]
id = "personal-gpt-3.5-turbo"
name = "gpt-3.5-turbo"
display_name = "GPT 3.5 Turbo (Personal)"

Export your conversations to a JSON file using the ChatGPT UI, then import them using the import command.

elia import 'path/to/conversations.json'

elia reset

pipx uninstall elia-chat