Inference Gateway CLI

An agentic command-line assistant that writes code, understands project context, and uses tools to perform real tasks.

📖 Documentation · 🚀 Quick Start · 🧭 Features · 💬 Discussions

The infer chat TUI - watch the animated demo

Early development stage: breaking changes are expected until the project reaches a stable version. Always pin a specific version tag when downloading binaries or using install scripts.

Installation

The recommended install is npm/npx - the matching native binary is fetched and cached on first use:

npx @inference-gateway/cli@latest chat

See Installation for production and CI installs, and Binary Verification to verify a download.

Quick Start

1. Initialize the userspace baseline:

infer init

This creates the shared ~/.infer/ configuration directory. All state (conversations, logs, history, artifacts) lives there, and a project .infer/ is an optional override layer you create with infer config set --project.

2. Set up your environment (create a .env file):

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_key_here
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_key_here
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=your_key_here

Provider keys resolve in this order, first hit wins: the system environment, the project .env, then the userspace ~/.infer/auth.yaml fallback - see Provider API Keys.

3. Start chatting:

infer chat

Features

One line per feature, each linking to its full guide:

Core

• Automatic gateway management - downloads and runs the gateway binary, no Docker required - Installation
• Interactive chat and headless agent - model selection, streaming, session resumption, inline history auto-completion - Commands Reference
• Agent modes - Standard, Plan, Auto-Accept and Auto+Judge, toggled with Shift+Tab - Plan Mode · Judge Mode
• Tool execution - every built-in tool the LLM can call, with parameters and approval defaults - Tools Reference
• Tool approval - the gate in front of sensitive tools - Tool Approval
• Custom tools - add tools in any language with one YAML manifest - Custom Tools
• MCP servers - Model Context Protocol integration - MCP Integration
• Subagents - fan out parallel infer headless runs - Subagents
• GitHub issue references - type # in chat to expand an issue inline (needs gh and a GitHub remote) - Shortcuts Guide
• Cost tracking - real-time per-model cost breakdown - Cost Tracking
• Conversation history - multiple storage backends - Conversation Storage
• Conversation versioning - navigate back in time to a previous point - Conversation Versioning
• Conversation titles - AI-generated session titles - Conversation Title Generation
• Configuration - two-layer YAML plus INFER_* environment overrides - Configuration Reference
• Directory structure - what the CLI writes where, userspace and project side by side - Directory Structure
• Configurable keybindings and themes - Configuration Reference
• Persistent memory - cross-session Markdown facts with an injected index - Persistent Memory
• Reminders and command hooks - extension points at agent-loop hook points - Reminders & Command Hooks
• Telemetry - OpenTelemetry traces and metrics - Telemetry
• AG-UI output - protocol event stream for the headless agent - AG-UI Output

Remote and automation

• Web terminal - browser-based, tabbed sessions - Web Terminal
• Remote messaging channels - drive the agent from Telegram - Channels
• Scheduled tasks - cron prompts that deliver back through the channel - Scheduling
• Heartbeat - periodic wake-up to check pending work - Heartbeat
• A2A agents - delegate to Agent-to-Agent servers - A2A Agents Configuration · A2A Connections
• Task management - the A2A task interface - Tasks Management
• Daemon - the hub the desktop app, the extension and Telegram reach the agent through - infer daemon
• Daemon binding - the WebSocket wire contract, including browser use through the extension - Daemon Binding Protocol
• Explorer and diffs - in-terminal file tree, fuzzy finder and diff viewer - Explorer

Skills and plugins

• Agent Skills - drop-in SKILL.md instruction folders - Agent Skills
• Plugins - Claude Code-format skills plus an always-on ruleset - Plugins
• Extensible shortcuts - custom /-commands with AI-powered snippets - Shortcuts Guide

Media and computer use

• Computer Use - drive the desktop: mouse, keyboard, screenshots - Computer Use
• Frame sources and vision annotation - let text-only models "see" - Vision
• Image generation, edit and variation - written to the session artifacts dir - Tools Reference
• Speech-to-text - dictate with Whisper, locally and offline - Speech-to-Text
• Text-to-speech - local WAV synthesis with zero-shot voice cloning - Text-to-Speech
• Text-to-music and text-to-video - generate audio and video through the gateway - Text-to-Music · Text-to-Video

Examples

Each directory under examples/ is a self-contained, runnable setup. See Examples for the full index and common workflows, or jump straight to basic for a minimal gateway plus CLI.

Contributing

Development is documented in CONTRIBUTING.md. Coding agents working in this repository should read AGENTS.md first; packages with their own agent-specific rules ship an AGENTS.md next to the code.

License

Apache 2.0 License - see the LICENSE file for details.