hey

talk to your terminal in natural language

works in English, Korean, Japanese, or whatever you type · one binary · three backends · zero config

cargo install ai-in-terminal

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See it in action

That's the whole workflow: type → read → enter. Re-render the demo with vhs demo.tape after changing the UI.

Text version (copy-paste friendly)

$ hey claude find the 5 largest files in Downloads

  ✱ claude · headless

   ▐▛███▜▌  here you go
  ▝▜█████▛▘
    ▘▘ ▝▝

  $ du -ah ~/Downloads | sort -rh | head -5

  list everything under Downloads with sizes, sort descending, take top 5

  ▶ run? Y (default) / N

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Meet the crew

Each backend has its own icon, voice, and personality in your terminal.

	Backend	Voice	How it connects	Auth
✱	Claude	"here you go"	claude -p or direct API	your Claude subscription
☁	Codex	"computed"	codex exec	your Codex subscription
◆	OpenRouter	"cooked"	HTTP API	OPENROUTER_API_KEY

In your terminal, each backend shows its own ASCII art mascot — Claude's sparkle, Codex's arrow, OpenRouter's diamond.

hey auto-detects: claude → codex → openrouter. Your subscription always comes first.

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30-second tour

# just ask — hey picks the best available backend
hey find all files over 100mb modified this week
hey 최근 일주일 안에 수정된 파일 보여줘
hey 100メガより大きいファイルを探して

# or name your backend
hey claude   explain this regex: \d{3}-\d{4}
hey codex    summarize the last 10 commits
hey openrouter kill the process on port 3000

# flags go before the prompt
hey -n  find files newer than a week     # dry-run
hey -y  git branches merged into main    # auto-run
hey -e  rename all .jpeg to .jpg         # with explanation

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Why hey?

⚡ Instant Sub-50ms binary start. One sentence in, one command out. No chat session, no project context, no waiting for a UI to load.

💸 Subscription-first Already pay for Claude Code or Codex? Use them inline — zero extra cost. OpenRouter is the fallback, not the default.

🛡 Safe by default rm, dd, mkfs, find -delete are always blocked — even wrapped in sh -c. Blocked commands go to your clipboard, never your shell.

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Install

From crates.io (recommended)

cargo install ai-in-terminal

Why two names? The crate is ai-in-terminal (searchable), the binary is hey (what you type). Cargo handles this — no alias, no symlink.

From pre-built binaries

Grab from the latest release:

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -L https://github.com/subinium/hey-cli/releases/latest/download/hey-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv hey /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Intel)
curl -L https://github.com/subinium/hey-cli/releases/latest/download/hey-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz | tar xz

# Linux (x86_64 / aarch64)
curl -L https://github.com/subinium/hey-cli/releases/latest/download/hey-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz | tar xz

First-time setup

Pick whichever backend you already have:

which claude   # Option A — Claude Code (nothing to configure)
which codex    # Option B — Codex CLI
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-...  # Option C — OpenRouter

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Risk gate

Some commands should never auto-run. hey hard-blocks these even with -y:

rm · del · rmdir · shred · unlink
find -delete · find -exec rm · xargs rm
dd · mkfs · fdisk · wipefs · git reset --hard

The gate unwraps sh -c '...' wrappers — rm hidden inside find -exec sh -c 'rm "$1"' is still caught.

  ✱ claude · headless   BLOCKED

   ▐▛███▜▌  careful — you should run this one yourself
  ▝▜█████▛▘
    ▘▘ ▝▝

  $ find . -name "*.log" -delete

  ▲  `find -delete` removes files — copied to clipboard

  copied to clipboard · paste & run manually

Soft warnings (yellow warn chip, still runs): sudo, mv, chmod, curl | sh, kill.

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Pretty by default

hey swaps bare commands for modern alternatives when installed:

Model says	hey runs	When
ls	eza --icons --color=always --git	eza installed, no flags
tree	eza --tree --icons --color=always	eza installed, no flags
cat foo.json	jq --color-output . foo.json	jq installed
cat foo	bat --color=always --paging=never foo	bat installed
grep	grep --color=always	no --color set
diff	diff … | delta	delta installed

Commands with flags pass through untouched. Use --raw to disable all rewrites.

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Security

• Content filter blocks prompts containing API keys (sk-ant-, AKIA, ghp_, etc.) and private key headers before they reach any backend.
• Risk gate is substring-aware — catches destructive commands even inside shell wrappers.
• Tools disabled in Claude backend — --disallowedTools strips all filesystem access; the model can only return text.
• No telemetry, no analytics, no data collection. Your prompts go to the backend you chose and nowhere else.

Override the content filter with --allow-sensitive when you genuinely need to reference a key pattern.

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All flags & env vars

Flags

Flag	Description
-y, --yes	Skip confirm, run immediately (blocked commands still blocked)
-n, --dry-run	Print the command, don't run it
-e, --explain	Force a one-line explanation
-c, --claude	Force Claude Code backend
-x, --codex	Force Codex CLI backend
-b, --backend <name>	auto / claude / codex / openrouter
-m, --model <id>	Override model (OpenRouter only)
--raw	Disable eza/bat/tree prettifier
--allow-sensitive	Allow prompts with API key patterns

Flags go before the prompt: hey -n claude list files

Environment variables

Var	Effect
OPENROUTER_API_KEY	Enables OpenRouter backend
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Enables direct Anthropic API (~2s vs ~6s for Claude)
AIT_BACKEND	Default backend
AIT_MODEL	Default OpenRouter model id

Recipe book

hey find files newer than a week, sort by size
hey claude explain what this awk does: {for(i=1;i<=NF;i++)a[$i]++}END{for(k in a)print k,a[k]}
hey codex generate a commit message from the staged diff
hey convert all .png in ~/Pictures to jpg, keep originals
hey kill everything listening on port 5173
hey or show git log for the last month by myself
hey -y git branches merged into main
hey 이 폴더에서 가장 큰 파일 5개 찾아줘
hey このディレクトリのRustファイルの行数を数えて

How it stays small

• Rust, 12 modules, ~1000 lines total. No plugin system, no TOML config, no lifecycle hooks.
• Backends are subprocesses for Claude & Codex — if claude works in your shell, it works in hey.
• Direct Anthropic API when ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set — skips the claude subprocess for ~2s response time.
• Auto-fallback chain — if a backend fails (rate limit, auth), hey transparently retries the next one.
• Conservative rewrites — only bare commands get prettified; anything with flags passes through.

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Roadmap

• hey --last / hey --retry — command history & recall
• Parent-shell eval mode — so cd/export suggested by hey affect the caller's shell
• Per-directory .heyrc for project-specific prompts
• Streaming output
• Homebrew tap

PRs welcome — keep them small.

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MIT · built by @subinium · hey is not affiliated with Anthropic, OpenAI, or OpenRouter

_{The crate is ai-in-terminal; hey started as ait (agent in terminal)}