Show HN: A tiny (480 LOC) AI coding assistant for your shell

TinyCoder is a tiny AI coding assistant designed to be used from command-line.

• Works directly within your existing shell environment (bash, zsh, etc.).
• Tell assistant to do something directly from your command prompt
• You can also use your favorite CLI editor to edit messages
• Maintains context across your commands.
• Can be used in scripts
• Supports various AI model providers (Ollama, Google Gemini, OpenRouter). More can be added easily, as it is built on LangChain.

To activate TinyCoder in your current session, run the following command:

Replace /path/to/tinycoder.py with the actual path to this script.

I just copy tinycoder.py to my ~/.local/bin folder.

Once activated, you'll have access to new aliases:

• ai <your prompt>: Send a message to the AI assistant. The AI will respond by executing commands or asking follow-up questions.
• aiedit: Open your default editor ($EDITOR or vim if not set), write your prompt, save, and exit. The content will be sent to the AI.

To deactivate TinyCoder and revert your shell to its previous state:

You can configure the AI model by setting environment variables:

• MODEL_PROVIDER: Set to ollama (default), google, or openrouter.
• MODEL_NAME: Specify the model name (e.g., qwen2.5-coder:32b-instruct for Ollama, gemini-2.5-flash for Google, or specific models for OpenRouter).
• OLLAMA_BASE_URL: For Ollama, specify the base URL if not localhost. E.g. 192.168.1.123.
• GOOGLE_API_KEY: Your Google API key if using the google provider.
• OPENROUTER_API_KEY: Your OpenRouter API key if using the openrouter provider.