ask

ask

Extremely lightweight yet powerful AI tool.

• Input file analysis: images, PDF, audio, videos, etc.
• Generation: images, videos.
• Tools: websearch, on linux with bubblewrap (bwrap) installed, a bash tool mounting the file system as read-only is provided.
• Works on Windows, macOS and Linux.
• No need to fight with Python or Node.

Installation

Get the binaries from https://github.com/maruel/ask/releases

From sources: Install Go, then run:

go install github.com/maruel/ask/cmd/...@latest

Have Go install the tool while running it. 💡 Set GROQ_API_KEY.

go run github.com/maruel/ask@latest \
    -p groq \
    "Give an advice that sounds good but is bad in practice"

Usage

Simple

➡ Simple usage. Defaults to a good model. 💡 Set GROQ_API_KEY.

ask -provider groq "Which is the best Canadian city? Be decisive."

This may respond:

A question that sparks debate! After careful consideration, I'm ready to make a definitive call. The best Canadian city is... Vancouver!

Here's why:

(...)

Best model

➡ Use the provider's best model with the predefined value SOTA and use a system prompt. 💡 Set DEEPSEEK_API_KEY.

ask -p deepseek -model SOTA \
    -sys "You have an holistic knowledge of the world. You reply with the style of William Zinsser and the wit of Dorothy Parker." \
    "Why is the sky blue?"

This may respond:

Well, my dear, if you must know, the sky is blue because the universe is something of a show-off. (...)

Image generation

➡ Generate an image for free. 💡 Set TOGETHER_API_KEY.

ask -p togetherai -m black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-schnell-Free \
    "Cartoon of a dog on the beach"

This may respond:

• Writing content.jpg

Video generation

➡ Generate a video starting from the image generated above. 💡 Set GEMINI_API_KEY.

ask -p gemini -m veo-3.0-fast-generate-preview \
    -f content.jpg \
    "Dog playing on the beach with fishes jumping out of the water"

This may respond:

• Writing content.mp4

🎬️ See the video with sound 🔊: dog.mp4

Vision

➡ Analyse a picture using vision. 💡 Set MISTRAL_API_KEY.

ask -p mistral -m mistral-small-latest \
    -sys "You are an expert at analysing pictures." \
    -f content.jpg \
    "What is this? Where is it? Reply succinctly."

This may respond:

This is a cartoon dog. It is on a beach.

File by URL

➡ Analyse a file from an URL using vision. 💡 Set OPENAI_API_KEY.

ask -p openai \
    -sys "You are an expert at analysing pictures." \
    -f https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Banana-Single.jpg/330px-Banana-Single.jpg \
    "What is this? Is it ripe?"

This may respond:

That’s a banana. The peel is mostly yellow with only a few tiny brown flecks, so it’s ripe and ready to eat now.

Notes:

• If you prefer a firmer, less sweet banana, wait until it has a little green at the stem.
• If you like it sweeter/softer, wait for brown spots to appear.
• To speed ripening, put it in a paper bag with an apple; to slow it, refrigerate (the peel will darken but the fruit stays fine).

Bash

➡ Leverage bash tool to enable the model to read local files. Only available on Linux. 💡 Set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.

ask -p anthropic -bash \
    "Can you make a summary of the file named README.md?"

This may output:

A lightweight AI tool that supports multiple providers, file analysis (images, PDF, audio, video), content generation, and includes tools like websearch and bash access on Linux.

⚠ This only works on Linux. This enables the model to read anything on your computer. This is dangerous. A better solution will be added later.

Environment variables

➡ Set ASK_PROVIDER, ASK_MODEL, ASK_SYSTEM_PROMPT to set default values.

export ASK_PROVIDER=gemini
export ASK_MODEL=gemini-2.5-flash
export ASK_SYSTEM_PROMPT="You are an expert at software engineering."
ask "Is open source software a good idea?"

Local 🏠️

➡ Use a local model using llama.cpp. llama-serve takes cares of downloading the binary and the model. Jan is a tool fine tuned version of Qwen 3 4B.

# Run on your faster computer with at least 16GB of RAM:
go install github.com/maruel/genai/cmd/llama-serve@latest
llama-serve -http 0.0.0.0:8080 -model Menlo/Jan-nano-gguf/jan-nano-4b-Q8_0.gguf -- \
	--temp 0.7 --top-p 0.8 --top-k 20 --min-p 0 --jinja -fa \
    -c 0 --no-warmup --cache-type-k q8_0 --cache-type-v q8_0

# Access this model from your local network:
export ASK_PROVIDER=llamacpp
export ASK_REMOTE=http://my-server.local:8080
ask "Can you make a summary of the file named README.md?"

Local Vision

➡ Use a vision enabled local model using llama.cpp. llama-serve takes cares of downloading the binary and the model files. It is critical to pass the mmproj file to enable vision. Gemma 3 4B is a Google created model with vision.

# Run on your faster computer with at least 16GB of RAM:
go install github.com/maruel/genai/cmd/llama-serve@latest
llama-serve -http 0.0.0.0:8080 \
    -model ggml-org/gemma-3-4b-it-GGUF/gemma-3-4b-it-Q8_0.gguf#mmproj-model-f16.gguf -- \
    --temp 1.0 --top-p 0.95 --top-k 64 --jinja -fa -c 0 --no-warmup

# Access this model from your local network:
export ASK_PROVIDER=llamacpp
export ASK_REMOTE=http://my-server.local:8080
ask -f https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Flag_of_Iceland.svg/330px-Flag_of_Iceland.svg.png \
    "What is this?"

Providers

Supports all providers supported by github.com/maruel/genai:

• Anthropic
• Cerebras
• Cloudflare Workers AI
• Cohere
• DeepSeek
• Google's Gemini
• Groq
• HuggingFace
• llama.cpp
• Mistral
• Ollama
• OpenAI
• Perplexity
• Pollinations
• TogetherAI