GPTel is a simple Large Language Model chat client for Emacs, with support for multiple models/backends.

General usage:

Multi-LLM support demo:

• It’s async and fast, streams responses.
• Interact with LLMs from anywhere in Emacs (any buffer, shell, minibuffer, wherever)
• LLM responses are in Markdown or Org markup.
• Supports conversations and multiple independent sessions.
• Save chats as regular Markdown/Org/Text files and resume them later.
• You can go back and edit your previous prompts or LLM responses when continuing a conversation. These will be fed back to the model.

GPTel uses Curl if available, but falls back to url-retrieve to work without external dependencies.

• Breaking Changes
• Installation
• Setup
• Usage
• Using it your way
• Additional Configuration
• Why another LLM client?
• Will you add feature X?
• Alternatives
• Acknowledgments

• Possible breakage, see #120: If streaming responses stop working for you after upgrading to v0.5, try reinstalling gptel and deleting its native comp eln cache in native-comp-eln-load-path.
• The user option gptel-host is deprecated. If the defaults don’t work for you, use gptel-make-openai (which see) to customize server settings.
• gptel-api-key-from-auth-source now searches for the API key using the host address for the active LLM backend, i.e. “api.openai.com” when using ChatGPT. You may need to update your ~/.authinfo.

GPTel is on MELPA. Ensure that MELPA is in your list of sources, then install gptel with M-x package-install⏎ gptel.

(Optional: Install markdown-mode.)

(straight-use-package 'gptel)

(package! gptel)

(use-package! gptel
 :config
 (setq! gptel-api-key "your key"))

Procure an OpenAI API key.

Optional: Set gptel-api-key to the key. Alternatively, you may choose a more secure method such as:

• Storing in ~/.authinfo. By default, “api.openai.com” is used as HOST and “apikey” as USER.

  machine api.openai.com login apikey password TOKEN
      

• Setting it to a function that returns the key.

(gptel-make-azure
 "Azure-1"                              ;Name, whatever you'd like
 :protocol "https"                      ;optional -- https is the default
 :host "YOUR_RESOURCE_NAME.openai.azure.com"
 :endpoint "/openai/deployments/YOUR_DEPLOYMENT_NAME/completions?api-version=2023-05-15" ;or equivalent
 :stream t                              ;Enable streaming responses
 :models '("gpt-3.5-turbo" "gpt-4"))

(setq-default gptel-backend
              (gptel-make-azure
               "Azure-1"
               ...))

(gptel-make-gpt4all
 "GPT4All"                              ;Name of your choosing
 :protocol "http"                       
 :host "localhost:4891"                 ;Where it's running
 :models '("mistral-7b-openorca.Q4_0.gguf")) ;Available models

;; OPTIONAL configuration
(setq-default gptel-model "mistral-7b-openorca.Q4_0.gguf" ;Pick your default model
              gptel-backend (gptel-make-gpt4all "GPT4All" :protocol ...))
(setq-default gptel-max-tokens 500)

(gptel-make-ollama
 "Ollama"                               ;Any name of your choosing
 :host "localhost:11434"                ;Where it's running
 :models '("mistral:latest")            ;Installed models
 :stream t)                             ;Stream responses

;; OPTIONAL configuration
(setq-default gptel-model "mistral:latest" ;Pick your default model
              gptel-backend (gptel-make-ollama "Ollama" :host ...))

1. Select a region of text and call M-x gptel-send. The response will be inserted below your region.
2. You can select both the original prompt and the response and call M-x gptel-send again to continue the conversation.
3. Call M-x gptel-send with a prefix argument to

• set chat parameters (GPT model, directives etc) for this buffer,
• to read the prompt from elsewhere or redirect the response elsewhere,
• or to replace the prompt with the response.

With a region selected, you can also rewrite prose or refactor code from here:

Code:

Prose:

1. Run M-x gptel to start or switch to the chat buffer. It will ask you for the key if you skipped the previous step. Run it with a prefix-arg (C-u M-x gptel) to start a new session.
2. In the gptel buffer, send your prompt with M-x gptel-send, bound to C-c RET.
3. Set chat parameters (LLM provider, model, directives etc) for the session by calling gptel-send with a prefix argument (C-u C-c RET):

That’s it. You can go back and edit previous prompts and responses if you want.

The default mode is markdown-mode if available, else text-mode. You can set gptel-default-mode to org-mode if desired.

Saving the file will save the state of the conversation as well. To resume the chat, open the file and turn on gptel-mode before editing the buffer.

GPTel’s default usage pattern is simple, and will stay this way: Read input in any buffer and insert the response below it.

If you want custom behavior, such as

• reading input from or output to the echo area,
• or in pop-up windows,
• sending the current line only, etc,

GPTel provides a general gptel-request function that accepts a custom prompt and a callback to act on the response. You can use this to build custom workflows not supported by gptel-send. See the documentation of gptel-request, and the wiki for examples.

These are packages that depend on GPTel to provide additional functionality

• gptel-extensions: Extra utility functions for GPTel.
• ai-blog.el: Streamline generation of blog posts in Hugo.

Other Emacs clients for LLMs prescribe the format of the interaction (a comint shell, org-babel blocks, etc). I wanted:

1. Something that is as free-form as possible: query the model using any text in any buffer, and redirect the response as required. Using a dedicated gptel buffer just adds some visual flair to the interaction.
2. Integration with org-mode, not using a walled-off org-babel block, but as regular text. This way the model can generate code blocks that I can run.

Maybe, I’d like to experiment a bit more first. Features added since the inception of this package include

• Curl support (gptel-use-curl)
• Streaming responses (gptel-stream)
• Cancelling requests in progress (gptel-abort)
• General API for writing your own commands (gptel-request, wiki)
• Dispatch menus using Transient (gptel-send with a prefix arg)
• Specifying the conversation context size
• GPT-4 support
• Response redirection (to the echo area, another buffer, etc)
• A built-in refactor/rewrite prompt
• Limiting conversation context to Org headings using properties (#58)
• Saving and restoring chats (#17)
• Support for local LLMs.

Features being considered or in the pipeline:

• Fully stateless design (#17)

Other Emacs clients for LLMs include

• chatgpt-shell: comint-shell based interaction with ChatGPT. Also supports DALL-E, executable code blocks in the responses, and more.
• org-ai: Interaction through special #+begin_ai ... #+end_ai Org-mode blocks. Also supports DALL-E, querying ChatGPT with the contents of project files, and more.

There are several more: chatgpt-arcana, leafy-mode, chat.el

• Alexis Gallagher and Diego Alvarez for fixing a nasty multi-byte bug with url-retrieve.
• Jonas Bernoulli for the Transient library.