Overview

q is an expressive, provider-agnostic command-line interface for LLMs.

$ q -i convert this to an app icon -f image.png -o logo.png
$ q -t is it suitable for my project -f README.md -m anthropic
$ q -sx add logo.png to my previous commit

Installation

Install using any pip-compatible package manager (e.g. pip, pipx, uv, etc.).

pipx install q-bot

Requires Python 3.12+.

Syntax

q follows the Unix philosophy of composable, single-purpose utilities. Every character from a to z maps to a single command or option: a command performs a specific LLM task, an option modifies it. One command runs per invocation, alongside any number of options.

Flags are single characters and can be bundled, so -sx is -s -x. A command's prompt follows it directly and can be unquoted. -- stops flag parsing so a prompt can contain leading dashes. With no command, a prompt reuses the last command in the session.

$ q -c reverse a linked list   # unquoted prompt
$ q now do it in place         # reuse last command

Run q -h for the full list of commands and options.

Commands

Shell (-s)

Generate a single shell command for the detected OS and shell. The model favors minimal, portable commands and is steered away from destructive ones (e.g. rm -rf, dd, mkfs, etc.). Without -x, the command is printed and copied to the clipboard.

$ q -s auto hide the dock          # on macOS
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool true; killall Dock

-x automatically runs the generated command.

$ q -sx count commits on this branch
> git rev-list --count HEAD
95

With no prompt, -s reads your last shell command, re-runs it to capture the error, and fixes it.

$ git push
fatal: The current branch dev has no upstream branch.
$ q -sx
> git push --set-upstream origin dev
Branch 'dev' set up to track remote branch 'dev' from 'origin'.

Important

Reading the last command requires a shell hook. Run q -s for instructions.

Image (-i)

Generate an image.

$ q -i a cat floating in space -o space_cat.png
Image saved to space_cat.png

-f adds an image to edit or use as context. Keep prompting in the same session to refine previous images.

$ q -i remove the people in the background -f image.png
Image saved to q_remove_the_people_in_the_background.png
$ q -i crop above the waist -o headshot.png
Image saved to headshot.png

Image generation, editing, and refinement are all one command over a stateful image conversation. Each user-specified and assistant-generated image is fed back as context so later turns can refer to them.

Note

Not all providers support images in assistant turns. In these cases, q spoofs the images as user turns, enabling multi-turn image editing for any provider that supports image generation.

Note

Image generation is not supported by anthropic.

Code (-c)

Generate an idiomatic code snippet and copy it to the clipboard.

$ q -c square every value in a dict
{k: v**2 for k, v in d.items()}

The default language is set in your config; -l overrides it.

$ q -c binary search -l rust -o search.rs
Response saved to search.rs

Web (-w)

Search the web for real-time information with source attribution.

$ q -w nba champions
The New York Knicks are the 2026 NBA champions. (nba.com)

Note

Web search is not supported by anthropic.

Explain (-e)

Explain a command, snippet, or concept in a dense paragraph for an experienced reader.

$ q -e 'find . -type d -name .git -exec dirname {} \; | sort'
This walks the current directory tree, finds every .git directory, strips the trailing /.git to yield each repository root, and sorts the results lexicographically.

Text (-t)

Generate raw text with no system prompt. Useful as a scripting primitive or a base for composition.

$ q -t write a sentence using only words that start with q
Quick quails quietly quench quivering quagmires.

Help (-h)

With no prompt, -h prints usage information. With a prompt, q is able to answer questions about itself by using its own source code as context.

$ q -h is -- -k transient or persistent
-k is transient. It overrides the API key for a single command and is not saved to the .env file.

Note

Prompting -h sends q's source code as context; such queries consume a large number of input tokens.

Sessions

Each terminal or script that runs q maintains an isolated session, which is a multi-turn history that persists across invocations, keyed to the parent shell process. Sessions are deleted automatically when that shell exits.

$ q -w bitcoin price
$ q all-time high       # same conversation

A session does not depend on the provider or capability, so either can be switched mid-conversation.

$ q -e explain photosynthesis -m anthropic
$ q -i draw a diagram -m openai:high        # new provider/capability

-z undoes the last n exchanges (default 1), and -n clears the history for a new conversation or a one-shot prompt.

Model Selection

q defines three capability tiers (low, med, and high) for each provider and capability. A tier maps to a comparable model and tuned parameters on every provider, so the same tier is faster and cheaper at low and more capable at high regardless of who serves it.

Each command has a sensible default tier, which -hv displays. The default provider is set in your config. -m overrides the tier, provider, or specific model name.

$ q -c quicksort -m high                        # override tier, use default provider
$ q -c quicksort -m anthropic                   # override provider, use default tier
$ q -c quicksort -m anthropic:high              # override both provider and tier
$ q -c quicksort -m anthropic:claude-opus-4-8   # override provider and specify model

-v prints the resolved model, parameters, system prompt, and message history to stderr before the response.

Input and Output Files

-f adds one or more files to any command. Text files are inserted as context; image files are sent as vision input. Both can be mixed in a single call.

$ q -e what does this module configure -f config.py
$ q -t compare these -f chart.png report.txt

-o writes the response or generated image to a path instead of stdout or the clipboard.

Configuration

q stores state and configuration under ~/.q/:

• .env: one API key per provider, prompted and saved the first time each provider is used.
• config.json: default provider (openai) and code language (python), created on first run.
• sessions/: one file per active session, reaped automatically when its shell exits.

-k overrides a provider's key for a single invocation without saving it to .env.

Library Usage

q implements a small multi-provider library, built on two principles:

• Single-capability clients: clients have a static return type T and do not require mode switching or tool-selection.
• Single interface and state model: clients expose a uniform interface and state model so they can be swapped dynamically mid-conversation.

Clients

A client is a wrapper around a provider's API for one capability. It stores conversation history as a list of portable Message objects and exposes two primary functions:

• generate: sends a prompt and returns the response, appending both to history.
• batch_generate: sends multiple prompts concurrently against the current history, leaving it unchanged.

The following built-in clients are provided for each provider:

Client	T	Description	openai	anthropic	google
TextClient	str	text generation	✓	✓	✓
WebClient	str	web-grounded text generation	✓	✗	✓
ImageClient	bytes	image generation	✓	✗	✓

Dynamic Loading

Client classes are typically imported from their provider module (e.g. q.openai, q.anthropic, etc.), but they can also be loaded at runtime by provider and client name using the load_client_class utility.

from q import load_client_class

client_class = load_client_class("openai", "ImageClient")
client = client_class(api_key, model, **model_args)

This is useful for building provider-agnostic tooling with minimal boilerplate, like the q CLI itself.

Example

from q import load_client_class

relay = [
    ("openai", openai_key, "gpt-5.4-mini"),
    ("anthropic", anthropic_key, "claude-sonnet-4-6"),
    ("google", google_key, "gemini-3.5-flash"),
]
messages = []
for provider, key, model in relay * 3:
    client = load_client_class(provider, "TextClient")(key, model, messages=messages)
    await client.generate("continue this story with one sentence", "You are a collaborative storyteller.")
    messages = client.messages
    print(f"{model}: {messages[-1].text}")