ShellSage saves sysadmins’ sanity by solving shell script snafus super swiftly
Overview
ShellSage is an AI-powered command-line assistant that integrates seamlessly with your terminal workflow through tmux. It provides contextual help for shell operations, making it easier to navigate complex command-line tasks, debug scripts, and manage your system.
ShellSage works with multiple LLM providers including Claude, GPT, and Ollama. It uses tmux to automatically read your terminal history or multiple pane histories to provide contextual assistance. You can pipe command output or file contents directly to ShellSage, and it can view files, search code, create files, and make edits with your permission. When needed, it can even search the internet for up-to-date information. You can also log all your interactions directly to SQLite for later reference.
Installation
Install ShellSage directly from PyPI using pip:
pip install shell-sage
Installing with uv
If you have uv installed then you can use its powerful tool feature to install ShellSage as a global CLI — safely, with per-tool isolation and no need for manual virtualenv management.
uv tool install shell_sage
This will make the ssage CLI available everywhere on your system.
If you also want to install additional dependencies (for example fastlite), you can do it at install time:
uv tool install --with fastlite shell_sage
Upgrade
To upgrade ShellSage to the latest version:
uv tool upgrade shell_sage
List All Installed Tools
See everything you’ve installed via uv tool:
uv tool list
Uninstall
To completely remove ShellSage and its environment:
uv tool uninstall shell_sage
Using uv tool keeps ShellSage completely isolated from your project dependencies, so you can safely use ssage even when inside another virtual environment.
Prerequisites
Before using ShellSage, you’ll need to set up an API key for your chosen LLM provider. By default, ShellSage uses Claude, so you’ll want to export your Anthropic API key:
exportANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk...
If you prefer to use OpenAI instead, you can export your OpenAI API key and update your shell sage config to use openai (see the Configuration section below for details):
exportOPENAI_API_KEY=sk...
ShellSage works best with a properly configured tmux environment. I’ve created a preconfigured tmux configuration that works well with ShellSage. This configuration enables mouse support, adds pane IDs to your status bar so you can quickly reference them when having ShellSage read from specific panes, turns off alternative-screen so editor content like vim stays in the tmux buffer where ShellSage can see it, and adds a convenient shortcut (CTRL+B+E followed by the index number) for automatically extracting code fence blocks into your command prompt.
Getting Started
Your First Command
Once installed, try ShellSage with a simple greeting:
!ssage hi
Hello! 👋 I'm ShellSage, your command-line teaching assistant.
I can help you with:
• Shell commands and scripting
• System administration tasks
• File operations and text processing
• Git workflows
• Docker commands
• And much more!
I see you have a nice setup with some useful aliases configured (like eza for
ls, nvim for vim, and various git shortcuts).
What would you like to learn or accomplish today?
If everything is properly setup, you should see a welcoming greeting back from ShellSage!
Getting Help with Commands
The most basic use case is asking about shell commands:
!ssage "how do I list all files including hidden ones?"
Based on your aliases, you already have a shortcut set up for this!
lsa
This uses your alias which expands to:
eza -lh --group-directories-first --icons=auto -a
The -a flag shows all files including hidden ones (those starting with .).
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Alternative commands:
If you want to use the standard ls command directly:
/usr/bin/ls -la
Or with your eza setup but without the alias:
eza -lha --group-directories-first --icons=auto
Tip: Hidden files in Linux start with a dot (.), like .bashrc or .config/. The
-a flag includes these in the listing.
ShellSage will provide the command, explain how it works, and give you practical examples.
Using Terminal Context
ShellSage automatically reads your tmux history to understand what you’re working on:
# After running some commands that produced errors (e.g. find -name "*.tmp" .)!ssage "what went wrong with my last command?"
The issue is with the argument order in your find command. You placed the path
(.) after the expression (-name "*.tmp"), but find requires the path to come
before any options or expressions.
Correct syntax:
find . -name "*.tmp"
Explanation:
The find command structure is:
find [path...] [expression]
• Path (. for current directory) must come first
• Expression (-name "*.tmp") comes after
Your command had them reversed, which confused find into thinking . was part of
the expression rather than the search path.
Common find patterns:
# Find in current directory
find . -name "*.tmp"
# Find in specific directory
find /path/to/dir -name "*.tmp"
# Find and delete (be careful!)
find . -name "*.tmp" -delete
Tip: If you forget the path, find defaults to the current directory, so find
-name "*.tmp" also works!
Piping Content for Analysis
One of ShellSage’s most powerful features is analyzing piped input:
Looking at the error in your system logs, here's what happened:
Core Dump Analysis
The hyprctl command (Hyprland's control utility) crashed with a SIGABRT signal
at 13:14:48. This is an abnormal termination.
Key Details from Stack Trace:
#7 0x00007f5af929ccc4 _ZSt20__throw_system_errori
#8 0x0000564adef2a4f2 n/a (/usr/bin/hyprctl + 0x44f2)
#9 0x0000564adef36f21 _Z7requestSt17basic_string_viewIcSt11char_traitsIcEEib
What this means:
• hyprctl threw a C++ system error exception
• The crash occurred in the request() function (frame #9)
• This typically happens when hyprctl can't communicate with the Hyprland
compositor
Common Causes:
1 Socket connection failure - Hyprland's IPC socket was unavailable/busy
2 Compositor not responding - Hyprland was temporarily unresponsive
3 Race condition - Command executed during compositor state change
To investigate further:
coredumpctl list hyprctl
coredumpctl info 10789
Note: This is usually a transient issue. If hyprctl commands work now, it was
likely a one-time glitch. If it persists, check Hyprland's logs with journalctl
--user -u hyprland or restart your compositor.
Working with Multiple Tmux Panes
When you have multiple panes open, you can reference specific ones by their ID (shown in your status bar):
btop output
# Analyze what's happening in pane %2!ssage --pid %2"what can you tell me about this pane?"
Looking at this btop system monitor output, here's what I can tell you about the
pane:
Overview
This is a comprehensive system resource monitor showing real-time performance
metrics for your Arch Linux system.
Key Information:
CPU (Top Section)
• AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (32 threads shown as C0-C15)
• Currently at 6% utilization running at 3.8 GHz
• Temperature: 58°C, Power: 53.9W
• Load average is very light: 0.05, 0.06, 0.08
GPU
• 9% utilization, 2.8GB/24GB VRAM used
• 39°C, 36.4W power draw
Memory (Left Middle)
• Total: 62.7 GiB
• Used: 4.60 GiB (mostly free at 58.1 GiB available)
• Cache: 4.02 GiB
• Swap: 3.99 GiB total, 0% used
Storage (Right Middle)
• Root partition: 929 GiB total, 10% used (88.6 GiB)
• No swap currently in use
Network (Bottom Left)
• Interface: enp4s0 (IP: 192.168.7.169)
• Download: 27.7 KiB/s
• Upload: 1.84 KiB/s
Processes (Right Side)
• Top consumers: Discord, Chromium, Python processes
• System has been up for 1 hour 8 minutes 38 seconds
Your system is very lightly loaded with plenty of headroom!
Configuration and Model Providers
Configuration File
ShellSage can be customized through a configuration file located at ~/.config/shell_sage/shell_sage.conf:
[DEFAULT]
model = 'claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929' # Your preferred model
search = '' # Enable web search capability (can be either l,m,h https://lisette.answer.ai/#web-search)
think = '' # Enable thinking capability (can be either l,m,h)
trust = '' # Comma-delimeted list of tools to not ask for confirmation about
mode = 'default' # or "sassy"
api_base = '' # alternative api url base
api_key = '' # alternative api key to use instead of default env var
history_lines = -1 # Lines of terminal history to include. -1 means include all
code_theme = "monokai" # Syntax highlighting theme
code_lexer = "python" # Default lexer for inline code blocks
log = False # Enable SQLite logging (required for code extraction)
Using Different Model Providers
ShellSage uses lisette under the hood, which supports any LLM provider via LiteLLM. This means you can use Claude, GPT, Gemini, local models via Ollama, and many others.
Local Models with Ollama
For privacy-conscious users or offline usage, run models locally:
# First, install and start Ollama, then pull a modelollama pull qwen3:1.7b# Use with ShellSagessage--model ollama_chat/qwen3:1.7b how do I compress a directory?# Or set as default in your config.tomlmodel = "ollama_chat/qwen3:1.7b"
Any configuration option can be temporarily overridden via command line arguments:
# Adjust history linesssage--history-lines 100 what commands did I just run?# Change the display themessage--code-theme dracula --code-lexer python show me a python example
You can find all available code themes and lexers at https://pygments.org/styles/
Extracting and Running Commands
When ShellSage suggests commands, you can extract them directly to your command line. Note that this feature requires you to have logging enabled in your configuration file:
!ssage "how do I find large files?"
To find large files on your system, here are the most useful commands:
Quick method - Find largest files in current directory:
du -ah . | sort -rh | head -20
This shows the 20 largest files/directories, human-readable sizes, sorted
largest first.
More targeted searches:
Find files larger than a specific size (e.g., 100MB):
find . -type f -size +100M -exec ls -lh {} \; | sort -k5 -rh
Search entire filesystem (requires sudo):
sudo find / -type f -size +1G -exec ls -lh {} \; 2>/dev/null
Interactive with ncdu (if installed):
ncdu /
This gives you a navigable interface to explore disk usage.
Breakdown:
• -type f = files only (not directories)
• -size +100M = larger than 100 megabytes (use G for gigabytes)
• sort -rh = reverse sort, human-readable numbers
• 2>/dev/null = suppress permission errors
Tip: Start with du -ah . | sort -rh | head -20 in your home directory to quickly
spot space hogs!
ShellSage will respond with code blocks. Press Ctrl+B E then enter the index number (0 for first block, 1 for second, etc.) to send that command directly to your prompt. You can also directly use the console script:
!ssage_extract 0# inserts "du -ah . | sort -rh | head -20" into your tmux prompt
Enabling Sassy Mode
For a more entertaining experience, try sassy mode (GLaDOS-inspired):
!ssage --mode sassy explain git rebase
Ah, git rebase. The command that separates the competent developers from those
who still think "merge commits" are a personality trait. How delightful that
you're ready to learn about history rewriting.
What is Git Rebase?
git rebase is a command that rewrites commit history by moving or combining a
sequence of commits to a new base commit. Think of it as picking up your branch
and transplanting it onto a different point in the git tree. It's like time
travel, but with fewer paradoxes and more merge conflicts.
Basic Syntax
git rebase <base-branch>
How It Works (In Terms Even Humans Can Grasp)
When you rebase, Git:
1 Finds the common ancestor between your current branch and the target branch
2 Takes all commits from your branch since that ancestor
3 Temporarily stores them away (how thoughtful)
4 Resets your branch to match the target branch
5 Replays your commits one by one on top of it
It's essentially saying: "What if my branch had started from here instead?"
Common Use Cases
1. Keep Your Feature Branch Up-to-Date
git checkout feature-branch
git rebase main
# Or the shorthand for those who value efficiency:
git rebase main feature-branch
2. Interactive Rebase (The Fun Part)
git rebase -i HEAD~3 # Rebase last 3 commits
This opens an editor where you can:
• pick - Keep the commit (how boring)
• reword - Change the commit message (for those who can't spell)
• edit - Modify the commit contents
• squash - Combine with previous commit
• fixup - Like squash, but discards the commit message
• drop - Delete the commit (pretend it never happened)
3. Rebase vs Merge
Merge:
git merge feature-branch # Creates a merge commit
Result: Preserves history, creates a "merge bubble"
Rebase:
git rebase main # Linear history
Result: Clean, linear history that looks like you knew what you were doing all
along
Example Scenario
# You're on feature-branch, main has moved ahead
git checkout feature-branch
git rebase main
# If conflicts occur (and they will, because of course they will):
# 1. Fix the conflicts in your editor
# 2. Stage the resolved files
git add <resolved-files>
# 3. Continue the rebase
git rebase --continue
# Or admit defeat:
git rebase --abort
Important Warnings (Please Read, For Science)
⚠️ THE GOLDEN RULE: Never rebase commits that have been pushed to a shared/public
branch. You'll rewrite history that others depend on, and they'll hate you.
Well, more than usual.
# Safe - your local feature branch:
git rebase main ✓
# Dangerous - already pushed to shared repo:
git rebase main # Then force push... ✗
git push --force # Congratulations, you've made enemies
Useful Options
git rebase --continue # Continue after resolving conflicts
git rebase --skip # Skip current commit (give up on it)
git rebase --abort # Abandon ship, return to pre-rebase state
git rebase -i HEAD~5 # Interactive rebase last 5 commits
git rebase --onto A B C # Advanced: rebase C onto A, starting from B
When to Use Rebase
• ✓ Cleaning up local commits before pushing
• ✓ Keeping feature branches up-to-date with main
• ✓ Creating a clean, linear history
• ✓ Squashing "fix typo" commits (we all make them, apparently)
When NOT to Use Rebase
• ✗ On public/shared branches
• ✗ When you want to preserve exact history
• ✗ When you're not prepared for conflict resolution
• ✗ Right before a demo (trust me on this one)
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
For more details that you probably won't read: git rebase --help
Now go forth and rewrite history. Just remember: with great power comes great
responsibility, and with git rebase comes great potential for catastrophic
mistakes. But I'm sure you'll be fine.
Contributing
ShellSage is built using nbdev. For detailed contribution guidelines, please see our CONTRIBUTING.md file.
