Terminal REPL

The Terminal REPL is AI Butler’s command-line chat interface — one of the two channels marked ready (Web Chat is the other). No configuration, no external services — just run one command and start talking.

aibutler repl

What You Get

• Token-by-token streaming responses
• Automatic context compaction on long sessions
• Slash commands for status, cost, and memory inspection
• Shared memory with all other channels
• Session resume (aibutler resume)
• No API key required (beyond whatever your model needs)

Quick Start

$ aibutler repl
AI Butler v0.1.0 REPL
Type /help for available commands, /quit to exit.
Provider: Anthropic Claude

> what can you do?
I can help with: coding, research, scheduling, memory, running...

> remember that my favorite editor is neovim
Got it — I'll remember you prefer neovim.

> /quit
Goodbye.

The REPL shares the same memory, tools, and configuration as every other channel. Ask a question on Telegram, and the answer is visible when you open the terminal — and vice versa.

Built-in Slash Commands

The REPL supports slash commands for runtime inspection and control:

Command	What it does
/help (or /h)	Show available commands
/status	Show session ID, message count, and estimated tokens
/cost	Show monthly spend against your configured budget
/compact	Force context compaction on the next message
/model	Show the current model
/clear	Clear conversation history
/memory	Show session memory stats
/diff	Show user/assistant message counts and token estimate
/quit (or /exit, /q)	Exit the REPL

The exact set of slash commands is defined in internal/cli/cmd_repl.go — check there for the latest list.

Multi-line Input

The REPL reads one line per message — each line you type (or pipe in) is sent as its own message. Long single-line inputs are fine (up to 1 MB), so a big pasted paragraph works as long as it doesn’t contain newlines. A dedicated multi-line input mode hasn’t shipped yet.

Voice Input

Voice input in the terminal (mic capture + playback) hasn’t shipped yet — it’s on the roadmap. Two voice-related commands exist today:

aibutler voice status      # show configured STT/TTS providers and limits
aibutler voice providers   # list available STT/TTS providers

Note

Text input is the recommended terminal workflow. Voice input works today in the Web Chat via the mic button, and on messaging channels (Telegram, Discord, Slack, all beta) via their built-in voice messages.

Features

Feature	Supported
Text streaming	Yes
Multi-line input	One line per message (large single-line pastes OK)
Command history	Not built in — use your terminal’s scrollback
Syntax highlighting	Plain terminal rendering
Markdown rendering	Plain text for now
File input	Pipe via stdin (each line is sent as its own message)
Voice input	Planned
Shared memory	Yes (cross-channel)

Resuming Sessions

Sessions persist to disk. You can jump back into a previous conversation:

aibutler resume            # pick from a list of recent sessions
aibutler resume <id>       # resume a specific session by ID

For programmatic control, use the A2A protocol or MCP server interfaces instead of driving the REPL from a script.