Ask LLM

This is a straightforward, zero-dependency CLI tool to interact with any LLM service.

It is available in several flavors:

• Python version. Compatible with CPython or PyPy, v3.10 or higher.
• JavaScript version. Compatible with Node.js (>= v18) or Bun (>= v1.0).
• Clojure version. Compatible with Babashka (>= 1.3).
• Go version. Compatible with Go, v1.19 or higher.

Ask LLM is compatible with either a cloud-based (managed) LLM service (e.g. OpenAI GPT model, Groq, OpenRouter, etc) or with a locally hosted LLM server (e.g. llama.cpp, LocalAI, Ollama, etc). Please continue reading for detailed instructions.

Interact with the LLM with:

./ask-llm.py         # for Python user
./ask-llm.js         # for Node.js user
./ask-llm.clj        # for Clojure user
go run ask-llm.go    # for Go user

or pipe the question directly to get an immediate answer:

echo "Why is the sky blue?" | ./ask-llm.py

or request the LLM to perform a certain task:

echo "Translate into German: thank you" | ./ask-llm.py

Using Local LLM Servers

Supported local LLM servers include llama.cpp, Jan, Ollama, and LocalAI.

To utilize llama.cpp locally with its inference engine, ensure to load a quantized model such as Phi-3.5 Mini, or Llama-3.1 8B. Adjust the environment variable LLM_API_BASE_URL accordingly:

/path/to/llama-server -m Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-Q4_K_M.gguf
export LLM_API_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8080/v1

To use Jan with its local API server, refer to its documentation and load a model like Phi-3 Mini, LLama-3 8B, or OpenHermes 2.5 and set the environment variable LLM_API_BASE_URL:

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:1337/v1
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL='llama3-8b-instruct'

To use Ollama locally, load a model and configure the environment variable LLM_API_BASE_URL:

ollama pull phi3.5
export LLM_API_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL='phi3.5'

For LocalAI, initiate its container and adjust the environment variable LLM_API_BASE_URL:

docker run -ti -p 8080:8080 localai/localai tinyllama-chat
export LLM_API_BASE_URL=http://localhost:3928/v1

Using Managed LLM Services

Supported LLM services include AI21, Deep Infra, DeepSeek, Fireworks, Groq, Hyperbolic, Lepton, Novita, Octo, OpenAI, OpenRouter, and Together.

For configuration specifics, refer to the relevant section. The examples use Llama-3.1 8B (or GPT-4o Mini for OpenAI), but any LLM with at least 7B parameters should work just as well, such as Mistral 7B, Qwen-2 7B, or Gemma-2 9B.

• AI21

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://api.ai21.com/studio/v1
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL=jamba-1.5-mini

• Deep Infra

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://api.deepinfra.com/v1/openai
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct"

• DeepSeek

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://api.deepseek.com/v1
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="deepseek-chat"

• Fireworks

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://api.fireworks.ai/inference/v1
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="accounts/fireworks/models/llama-v3p1-8b-instruct"

• Groq

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://api.groq.com/openai/v1
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="llama-3.1-8b-instant"

• Hyperbolic

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://api.hyperbolic.xyz/v1
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct"

• Lepton

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://llama3-1-8b.lepton.run/api/v1
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="llama3-1-8b"

• Novita

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://api.novita.ai/v3/openai
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="meta-llama/llama-3.1-8b-instruct"

• Octo

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://text.octoai.run/v1/
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="meta-llama-3.1-8b-instruct"

• OpenAI

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://api.openai.com/v1
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="gpt-4o-mini"

• OpenRouter

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="meta-llama/llama-3.1-8b-instruct"

• Together

export LLM_API_BASE_URL=https://api.together.xyz/v1
export LLM_API_KEY="yourownapikey"
export LLM_CHAT_MODEL="meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-Turbo"