Show HN: Genie: Your AI-Powered Terminal Sidekick (CLI and TUI)

9 hours ago 2

Transform your terminal into an AI-powered workspace. Born from a developer's need for control and transparency in AI assistance.

# Download latest release curl -L https://github.com/kcaldas/genie/releases/latest/download/genie_$(uname -s)_$(uname -m).tar.gz | tar xz sudo mv genie /usr/local/bin/ # Or use Docker docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/kcaldas/genie:latest # Or build from source go install github.com/kcaldas/genie/cmd/genie@latest

Get a free Gemini API key:

Generate a key from Google AI Studio
Set it as an environment variable:

export GEMINI_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY" genie ask "hello world" # CLI mode git diff | genie ask "commit msg?" # Unix pipes genie # Interactive TUI mode

💡 Tip: The Gemini API provides 100 free requests per day with Gemini 2.5 Pro. Upgrade to a paid plan for higher rate limits.

📖 Full setup guide: docs/INSTALLATION.md

Genie supports different personas for specialized tasks:

# Use specific personas genie --persona engineer ask "review this code" genie --persona product-owner ask "plan this feature"

📖 Learn more: docs/PERSONAS.md

Inspired by Lazygit, Claude Code, and Aider, and built for the Unix philosophy: composable, transparent, and adaptable.

Core beliefs:

Give you control - Understand what's happening, not just trust a black box, and is infinitely hackable
Integrate naturally - Work with your existing tools, don't replace them
Respect the terminal - Embrace the power and flexibility of the command line
Stay composable - Pipe, redirect, script, and automate freely

Whether you're coding, managing projects, taking notes, or automating workflows, Genie adapts to your needs.