Ask OpenAI's Chat Completion API from the bash command line

Inspired by this article by Norah Sakal on asking OpenAI questions from the terminal using python.

Instructions

In my ~/.bashrc I added the following lines:

export OPEN_AI_API_KEY="myopenaiapikey"
export WOLFRAM_APP_ID="mywolframappid"

alias ask='ruby ~/ask-cli/ask.rb'

Then I run source ~/.bashrc and I can use the ask command from the command line. I have my OpenAI API key in the environment variable OPEN_AI_API_KEY. The location of your ask.rb file may be different, but I put mine in my home directory in a folder called ask-cli.

Usage

  ask "How do I extract my discord file?"

This script will use the Function Calling feature of the OpenAI Chat Completion API to run commands such as ls and pwd to get extra context for the question. See a list of available functions further below in this README.

In this example you can see how the extra context is helpful:

matt@ubuntu-desktop:~$ ls
ask  Desktop  discord.tar.gz  Documents  Downloads  Music  Pictures  Public  snap  Templates  Videos  working
matt@ubuntu-desktop:~$ ask "How do I extract my discord file?"
You can extract your discord file using the following command:

tar -xvf discord.tar.gz

This will extract the contents of the `discord.tar.gz` file in the current directory.

Pretty nifty!

Should I use gpt-3.5-turbo or gpt-4?

I recommend gpt-4 if you have access to it. That is in the code right now as "gpt-4-0613" because this model includes support for Function Calling. If you want to use gpt-3.5-turbo, you can change the model name in the code to "gpt-3.5-turbo-0613" and it will work just fine.

Here's an example of GPT 3.5 Turbo vs GPT-4

GPT 3.5 Turbo

matt@linux:~/working$ ask "What day is it tomorrow?"
Calling function: date
Arguments: {}
Calling function: date
Arguments: {}
Calling function: date
Arguments: {}
Calling function: date
Arguments: {}
# ... 46 more times. GPT-3.5 Turbo called the same function and got the same result 50 times. Then it finally answered.
Tomorrow is June 18, 2023.

GPT-4

matt@linux:~/working$ ask "What day is it tomorrow?"
Calling function: date
Arguments: {}
Tomorrow is June 18, 2023.

As you can see, GPT-4 is much more efficient and doesn't need to call the function 50 times to get the answer. GPT-4 is more expensive but it's definitely more effective.

Available Functions for Function Calling

This script supports several Ruby functions that Ask CLI can call. You can add more functions to the functions.rb file if you want to add more functionality. Here are the functions that are currently supported:

• ls(directory): Get the contents of a specified directory.
• pwd: Get the current directory.
• whoami: Get the current user. Useful if you need to find a home directory or something specific to the current user.
• grep(pattern, file): Search for PATTERN in each FILE or standard input. FILE can be a file or a directory. If it's a directory, the command will perform a recursive search.
• cat(file): Concatenate a single file to standard output.
• date: Get the current date and time in the format 'Month Day, Year @ Hour:Minute:Second AM/PM'.
• curl(url): Make a curl request to a specified URL.
• top: Get the top processes running on the system.
• ping(host): Ping a specified host.
• do_math_with_wolfram(query): Ask Wolfram Alpha to do math for you. For example, "What is 2 + 2?" or "What is the square root of 4?".

History

By default, chat history is saved in your ask-cli folder in a file called history.json in the same directory as ask.rb. If your history gets so long that you need to delete it (going over token limits or just want a fresh start), just delete the history.json file and it will be recreated the next time you run the script.

Having a history is useful to keep in the chat context since it remembers the last question asked and the last answer received. For example:

[
  {
    "role": "user",
    "content": "What directory am I in?"
  },
  {
    "role": "assistant",
    "content": "You are in the `/home/matt/ask-cli` directory."
  },
  {
    "role": "user",
    "content": "What files are in that directory?"
  },
  {
    "role": "assistant",
    "content": "The files in the `/home/matt/ask-cli` directory are:\n\n- `.git` (directory)\n- `README.md`\n- `ask.rb`\n- `functions.rb`\n- `history.json`"
  },
  {
    "role": "user",
    "content": "What files are in the parent directory?"
  },
  {
    "role": "assistant",
    "content": "The files and directories in the parent directory are:\n\n- `.angular-config.json`\n- `.aws`\n- `.azure`\n- `.bash_completion`\n- `.bash_history`\n- `.bash_logout`\n- `.bash_profile`\n- `.bashrc`\n- `.bun`\n- `.bundle`\n- `.cache`\n- `.config`\n- `.cspell`\n- `.daml`\n- `.docker`\n- `.dotnet`\n- `.expo`\n- `.gitconfig`\n- `.gnupg`\n- `.ionic`\n- `.kube`\n- `.lesshst`\n- `.local`\n- `.mkshrc`\n- `.mongodb`\n- `.motd_shown`\n- `.npm`\n- `.npmrc`\n- `.nuget`\n- `.nvm`\n- `.profile`\n- `.psql_history`\n- `.rvm`\n- `.ssh`\n- `.sudo_as_admin_successful`\n- `.templateengine`\n- `.vscode-server`\n- `.vstsnpmauthrc`\n- `.wget-hsts`\n- `.yarn`\n- `.yarnrc`\n- `.zlogin`\n- `.zshrc`\n- `ask-cli`\n- `aws`\n- `awscliv2.zip`\n- `working`\n- `wsl`"
  }
]

I would love to have history be based on the current terminal session so you wouldn't have to manage a history file, but I don't know how to do that yet. If you know how to do that, please let me know!