Ell – A command-line interface for LLMs written in Bash
Hi HN! I've created a CLI tool called "ell" that allows you to interact with LLMs directly from your terminal. Designed with the Unix philosophy in mind, ell is simple, modular, and extensible. You can easily pipe input and output to integrate with other tools. Its templates and hook-based plugins enable you to customize and extend its functionality to suit any needs. Check out the README for usage instructions and examples. I developed this tool because existing solutions often felt too heavy, with many dependencies, or they weren't friendly to piping and customization. I, on the contrary,…
In plain words
Ell is a command-line tool written in Bash that lets developers interact with large language models directly from the terminal. Built with Unix philosophy principles, it emphasizes simplicity and modularity, allowing users to pipe input and output between other tools. The tool includes customizable templates and hook-based plugins for extending functionality. It requires minimal dependencies and can read terminal output as context, enabling developers to ask LLMs for help with issues directly within their workflow.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi HN! I've created a CLI tool called "ell" that allows you to interact with LLMs directly from your terminal. Designed with the Unix philosophy in mind, ell is simple, modular, and extensible. You can easily pipe input and output to integrate with other tools. Its templates and hook-based plugins enable you to customize and extend its functionality to suit any needs. Check out the README for usage instructions and examples. I developed this tool because existing solutions often felt too heavy, with many dependencies, or they weren't friendly to piping and customization. I, on the contrary, wrote in almost pure Bash with least dependencies. Additionally, I found a lack of tools that could read past terminal output as context. Imagine encountering an issue in your terminal and being able to directly ask an LLM for help with a simple command—this is now possible with ell (see the demo video). Known limitations: - To maintain simplicity and efficiency, jq is used for JSON parsing. - Cannot avoid curl to sending HTTPS requests. If only there were SSL / TLS support in `/dev/tcp/`! - Perl is used to handle terminal escape sequences because regex in Bash does not support looking around. - Markdown syntax highlighting is not perfect due to the need for streaming output. It relies on a simple state machine instead of a full parser, which may produce falsy results. - Other known issues are listed in Github Issues. Please help add more! I welcome any criticism and suggestions, whether it's about the idea or code!
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