tgpt is a cross-platform command-line interface that puts AI chatbots in the terminal, aimed at developers, system administrators and shell-centric users who want model access without leaving the command line.

What it is

tgpt is an open-source CLI tool written in Go and released under the GPL-3.0 licence. It runs on GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and FreeBSD, and it gives the user a terminal front end to conversational AI providers rather than a graphical application. The project ships binaries through its GitHub releases page and is additionally distributed through Arch Linux's pacman, Homebrew, Scoop, Chocolatey and the FreeBSD ports tree as www/tgpt. Its provider coverage is documented separately in md/providers.md, and its command reference lives in md/usage.md. The tagline describes it as "AI Chatbots in terminal for free".

The concrete problem it solves is context switching. Without a tool of this kind, talking to a hosted chatbot means opening a browser, authenticating to a web interface and copying text back and forth into the shell. tgpt collapses that into a single executable that is invoked from the prompt, which matters most when the user is already inside an SSH session, a remote server, a container host or a terminal multiplexer where a browser is unavailable or impractical. Rather than replacing a specific named product, it replaces the general practice of leaving the terminal to reach a chat model, and it does so for multiple providers behind one interface.

Key capabilities

• Multi-provider support documented in md/providers.md, so one binary fronts several chat backends.
• Model families referenced by the project's topics include gpt4, llama and mixtral.
• Proxy support through the http_proxy or HTTP_PROXY environment variable, accepting http://ip:port, http://user:pass@ip:port, socks5://ip:port and socks5://user:pass@ip:port.
• Proxy configuration through a file at either ./proxy.txt or ~/.config/tgpt/proxy.txt.
• Self-update for script installations via tgpt -u, with package-manager installs updated through their own commands.
• Configuration stored in ~/.config/tgpt on GNU/Linux and in Library/Application Support/tgpt on macOS.
• Installation across ecosystems: pacman -S tgpt, brew install tgpt, choco install tgpt, Scoop, the FreeBSD port and package, and go install github.com/aandrew-me/tgpt/v2@latest.

Who uses it and how

• Linux and macOS users who install from the shell script into /usr/local/bin and update in place with tgpt -u.
• Arch Linux and FreeBSD users who prefer to track the tool through pacman -Syu tgpt or the ports tree rather than a vendor script.
• Windows users deploying through the PowerShell install script, Scoop or Chocolatey, including scripted uninstallation via the same script with the -Uninstall flag.
• Operators on restricted or proxied networks who route traffic through HTTP_PROXY or a proxy.txt file.
• Developers automating or scripting shell work who want the model reachable as a normal executable on PATH.

Getting started

Install with the shell script curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aandrew-me/tgpt/main/install | bash -s /usr/local/bin, or use a package manager such as brew install tgpt, pacman -S tgpt or go install github.com/aandrew-me/tgpt/v2@latest. The provider list and flag reference are in md/providers.md and md/usage.md.

How it compares

The provided facts name no paid products that tgpt replaces and no comparable tools in the same category. On the evidence available, tgpt stands alone in this registry.

When to use it — and when not to

There is nothing to operate: no database, no object storage and no mail server, because tgpt is a single binary that calls remote providers, so the trade-off is a dependency on network access and on whichever providers are reachable from the machine. Users who need a graphical interface, guaranteed vendor support or a documented provider-level service agreement should look elsewhere. The main weakness visible here is thin documentation at the top level: the README excerpt covers installation, updating, proxying and uninstallation in detail, but usage and provider behaviour are pushed into md/usage.md and md/providers.md, so the entry point alone does not show what commands actually do.

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aandrew-me/tgpt/main/install | bash -s /usr/local/bin

pacman -S tgpt

brew install tgpt

cd /usr/ports/www/tgpt/ && make install clean

pkg install www/tgpt
pkg install tgpt

go install github.com/aandrew-me/tgpt/v2@latest

tgpt -u

http://127.0.0.1:8080

sudo rm $(which tgpt)