PointAntStorm / grok-self

# grok-cli-self
### The lightweight, zero-dependency Grok CLI — chat with xAI's Grok AI directly from your terminal
**One-shot prompts · Interactive chat · Streaming replies · Pipe anything in · macOS, Linux & Windows**
Installation ·
Quick Start ·
Usage ·
For Developers ·
FAQ ·
Contributing
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## 🤖 What is grok-cli-self?
**grok-cli-self** is a free, open-source **command-line interface (CLI) for Grok**, the AI assistant built by **xAI**. It brings the power of Grok's large language models — including the latest **Grok 4** family — straight into your terminal, so you can ask questions, generate code, explain errors, draft text, and automate AI workflows **without ever leaving your shell**.
If you're searching for a **Grok CLI**, a **Grok command-line tool**, a way to **use Grok in the terminal**, or a **self-hosted Grok chat client** that you fully control — this is it. No Electron, no browser tab, no telemetry, no bloat: one small Node.js program, **zero runtime dependencies**, and your own xAI API key.
> ⚠️ **Disclaimer:** grok-cli-self is a community project and is **not an official xAI product**. "Grok" and "xAI" are trademarks of xAI Corp. This tool simply talks to the official, public xAI API using your own key.
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## ✨ Features
- ⚡ **Blazing fast startup** — pure Node.js, zero dependencies, installs in seconds
- 💬 **Interactive chat mode** — a friendly REPL with conversation memory, slash commands and multi-line input
- 🎯 **One-shot mode** — `grokself "your question"` prints the answer and exits; perfect for scripts
- 🌊 **Real-time streaming** — watch Grok's reply appear token by token
- 🔀 **Pipe anything in** — `cat error.log | grokself "what's wrong here?"` — the Unix way
- 🧠 **Model switching** — use `grok-4-latest`, `grok-code-fast-1`, or any model your key can access
- 🔐 **Private by design** — your API key lives in `~/.grokself/config.json` (chmod `600`) and is sent only to `api.x.ai`
- 🛠️ **Scriptable & CI-friendly** — `--no-stream`, exit codes, env vars (`XAI_API_KEY`, `GROK_BASE_URL`, `GROK_MODEL`)
- 🍎 **Runs anywhere Node 18+ runs** — macOS (Apple Silicon & Intel), Linux, Windows (PowerShell / Git Bash / WSL)
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## 🚀 Installation
### ⚡ macOS — 3-line quick install
Open **Terminal** (press `⌘ + Space`, type `Terminal`, hit Enter) and run these **three lines**, one at a time:
1. Install Apple's command line tools (needed by git & compilers)
 [code] 
2. Install Node.js + npm via nvm — see https://nodejs.org/en/download
 [code] 
3. Install grok-cli-self straight from GitHub
 [code] 
Then run it:
 [code] 
### 🐧 Linux / 🪟 Windows
 [code] 
### 🌍 Optional: install globally
If you want the `grokself` command available **everywhere** (not just inside the `grokself` folder):
 [code] 
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## 🧒 Never used a terminal before? (Beginner-friendly guide)
No worries — follow these steps exactly and you'll be chatting with Grok in ~5 minutes. **No programming knowledge and no Homebrew needed.**
**Step 1 — Open the Terminal app.**
On your Mac, pre