e.GPT

e.GPT is a command-line tool that interacts with the ChatGPT API directly or indirectly, without the need for an environment like Node.js or Python to be installed.

Table of contents

• Install
• Execute
• Commands
  • ask - Chat with the bot
  • code - Convert human language to source code
  • describe - Describe a shell command
  • environment - Show or edit environment settings
  • explain - Explain source code
  • fix - Fix text issues
  • optimize - Optimizes source code
  • shell - Create shell command from human language
  • sql - Execute SQL from human language
  • summarize - Creates a short version of a long text
  • translate - Translates a text
  • ui - Run local UI
• Inputs
• Environment Variables
• Examples
• Custom System Prompts
• Credits

Install [↑]

e.GPT is available as a single binary which can be downloaded from here.

After downloading, you should extract and move it to a location that can be accessed from anywhere and is part of your PATH environment variable.

You can set up your system's environment variables or create an .env file inside the subfolder .egpt, which itself is inside the $HOME directory of the current user.

There are three ways to set up environment variables for the tool:

1. The most common way is to set up the OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable, which should contain the API key from OpenAI. This will enable the CLI to connect to the official API.
2. Another way is to set up CHAT_API_KEY, which will connect to a simplified and more generic version of a chat REST API. This also requires CHAT_API_CLIENT_ID and CHAT_API_URL to be defined.
3. Similar to way 2, you can set up CHAT_API_CLIENT_ID, CHAT_API_CLIENT_SECRET, CHAT_API_URL, and OAUTH2_GET_TOKEN_URL if you wish to use OAuth 2 instead.

Execute [↑]

egpt ask "How much is a PS5?" --system="You are an Xbox customer support agent whose primary goal is to help users with issues they are experiencing with their Xbox devices. You are friendly and concise. You only provide factual answers to queries, and do not provide answers that are not related to Xbox."

Run egpt help to see all available commands and options.

If you want to run this code locally, make sure that the bash script egpt is executable so that you can run it the same way.

Commands [↑]

ask [↑]

Sends a single conversation to a chat API, such as ChatGPT, depending on your environment variables.

egpt ask "Who is Bill Gates?"

Possible response:

Bill Gates is an American entrepreneur, software developer, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation in 1975 with Paul Allen and helped to revolutionize the personal computer industry with the development of the Windows operating system. As of 2021, he is considered one of the wealthiest people in the world, with a net worth of over $100 billion. In recent years, he has devoted much of his time and resources to philanthropic endeavors, primarily through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which works to improve global healthcare and reduce poverty.

You can use --system to set up a custom system prompt.

code [↑]

Generates code from human language.

egpt code "i need a Fibonacci function in go"

Possible response:

// Define the Fibonacci function
func fibonacci(n int) int {
    if n == 0 {
        return 0
    } else if n == 1 {
        return 1
    } else {
        return fibonacci(n-1) + fibonacci(n-2)
    }
}

// Call the Fibonacci function with an input of 10
fmt.Println(fibonacci(10)) // Output: 55

describe [↑]

Handles a user input as a shell command and attempts to provide a description of it.

egpt describe "curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/egomobile/e-gpt/releases/latest | jq -r '.assets[].browser_download_url | select(contains("darwin") and contains("arm64") and (. | tostring | contains("sha256") | not))' | xargs curl -sL | tar xzOf - egpt | sudo tee /usr/local/bin/egpt > /dev/null && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/egpt"

Possible response:

This command downloads the latest release of the "egpt" tool from the "egomobile/e-gpt" GitHub repository for macOS devices with ARM64 architecture, extracts the binary from the downloaded archive, and saves it as an executable file in the "/usr/local/bin" directory.

environment [↑]

Outputs or modifies the application's own files, such as .env or .system.

egpt environment -e

This will open the .env file in the editor and ensure that the ${HOME}/.egpt folder exists.

You can also open ${HOME}/.egpt/.system, which contains optional and custom system prompts for the ask command:

egpt environment -e --system

explain [↑]

Explains source code.

If, for example, you have this BASIC spaghetti code in a spaghetti.bas file:

i=0
i=i+1
PRINT i; "squared=";i*i
IF i>=100 THEN GOTO 6
GOTO 2
PRINT "Program Completed."
END

You can execute

egpt explain < ./spagetti.bas --language="basic"

and may get an output like this:

This is a simple program that calculates the square of numbers from 1 to 100 and prints them to the console.

The program starts by initializing a variable `i` with the value 0. It then enters a loop that increments `i` by 1, calculates the square of `i`, and prints the result to the console in the format "i squared= result".

The loop continues until `i` is greater than or equal to 100, at which point the program skips to line 6 and continues executing. If `i` is less than 100, the program jumps back to line 2 and continues the loop.

Once the loop completes, the program prints "Program Completed." to the console and exits.

fix [↑]

Checks a text for grammar issues and typos, and returns a corrected version of it.

egpt fix "Thiz iz a simpl program that calculats the sqaure of numbrs form 1 to 1000 and printz them to the consule."

Possible response:

This is a simple program that calculates the square of numbers from 1 to 1000 and prints them to the console.

optimize [↑]

Optimizes source code.

If you for example have this BASIC spagetti code in a spagetti.bas file:

i=0
i=i+1
PRINT i; "squared=";i*i
IF i>=100 THEN GOTO 6
GOTO 2
PRINT "Program Completed."
END

You can execute

egpt optimize < ./spagetti.bas

and may get an output like this:

i=0
WHILE i<100
    i=i+1
    PRINT i; "squared=";i*i
END WHILE
PRINT "Program Completed."

shell [↑]

Converts human language into a shell command.

Let's say you execute

egpt shell -e

and submit the following text from your editor to egpt:

Consider the following bash script:

1. Use curl to download the list of github releases from https://api.github.com/repos/egomobile/e-gpt/releases/latest, which is piped to
2. jq that finds the first matching "browser_download_url" sub-property of "assets" property with "darwin" and "arm64" substrings, which is piped to
3. and written to a variable.
4. This variable is used as the download URL for a new curl instance that downloads the underlying .tar.gz file, which is then piped to
5. tar, which extracts the single "egpt" file and pipes this extracted file as content
6. so that it is saved to /usr/local/bin folder.
7. Finally, make the file executable.

A possible output in a zsh shell could be:

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/egomobile/e-gpt/releases/latest | jq -r '.assets[].browser_download_url | select(contains("darwin") and contains("arm64") and (. | tostring | contains("sha256") | not))' | xargs curl -sL | tar xzOf - egpt | sudo tee /usr/local/bin/egpt > /dev/null && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/egpt
[E]xecute, [a]bort >

Keep in mind that E is the default selection and will execute the given command.

sql [↑]

Executes SQL from human language.

egpt sql --csv "list all customers with last name Musk and select only name and address columns"

Possible response:

The following statements will be executed:
- SELECT first_name, last_name, company_name, email_address, phone_number, street, city, post_code, country FROM public.customers WHERE lower(last_name) = 'musk'

[E]xecute, [a]bort

Keep in mind that E is the default selection and will execute the given command.

To set up the database connection, you can:

• Use the connection CLI flag with a connection string.
• Set up the DATABASE_URL environment variable with a connection string.

Currently, the following are supported:

• PostgreSQL

summarize [↑]

Summarizes a long text.

egpt summarize --max-length=10000 --language=chinese < ./long-article.txt

Possible response:

该文章批评了红帽公司在IBM收购后的做法，认为其背离了开源社区的原则，变得像一家普通的软件公司。文章指出，红帽公司最近的一系列举动，如解雇了开源社区网站的团队和收回了RHEL的代码，都是对开源社区的背叛。作者认为，像Rocky Linux和AlmaLinux这样的替代品是很重要的，因为很多企业需要一种免费的RHEL克隆版，而不想支付高昂的费用。文章认为，这种做法是对开源社区的不尊重，而且与其先前的言论相矛盾。

translate [↑]

Translates a text.

egpt translate --language=german < ./chinese-article.txt

Possible response:

Der Text kritisiert das Verhalten von Red Hat nach der Übernahme durch IBM und wirft dem Unternehmen vor, sich von den Prinzipien der Open-Source-Community abzuwenden und zu einem gewöhnlichen Software-Unternehmen zu werden. Der Autor weist darauf hin, dass die jüngsten Maßnahmen von Red Hat, wie die Entlassung des Teams der Open-Source-Community-Website und die Rücknahme des RHEL-Codes, Verrat an der Open-Source-Community sind. Der Autor hält Alternativen wie Rocky Linux und AlmaLinux für wichtig, da viele Unternehmen eine kostenlose RHEL-Klon-Version benötigen, ohne hohe Kosten zu zahlen. Der Autor betrachtet dieses Verhalten als respektlos gegenüber der Open-Source-Community und widersprüchlich zu früheren Äußerungen von Red Hat.

ui [↑]

Runs and serves a local web user interface.

egpt ui

Inputs [↑]

You have the following sources for input data:

1. One or more non-flag command line arguments. All will be concatenated and separated by space to one string.
   • Example: egpt ask who is bill gates
2. The standard editor:
   • Example: egpt ask summarize the following text --editor
3. The STDIN:
   • Example #1: egpt ask "please summarize" < ./long-text.txt
   • Example #2: curl -sSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/egomobile/e-gpt/main/LICENSE" | ./egpt ask summarize the following text

You can combine all kinds of inputs. All texts will be concatenated in the given order and separated by space to one string.

Keep in mind: The final prompt will be trimmed (start + end).

Environment Variables [↑]

Name	Description	Default value	Example
CHAT_API_CLIENT_ID	Set up to use a proxy API.		a816037f-cb72-4f67-8855-71be067637fc
CHAT_API_CLIENT_SECRET	Set if using a proxy API via OAuth 2. Requires OAUTH2_GET_TOKEN_URL to be set.		a816037f-cb72-4f67-8855-71be067637fc
CHAT_API_KEY	Set if using a proxy API with API key, submitted via x-api-key header.		ZIREUIcc
CHAT_API_TEMPERATURE	Set default sampling temperature to use, between 0 and 2.	0.7	0.5
CHAT_API_URL	Sets up the base URL for a proxy API usage.		https://api.example.com/v1/chat/completions
CHAT_ANSWER_NO_NEW_LINE	Adds no new line at the end of each chat message automatically.	false	true
DATABASE_URL	Required for sql command execution.		postgres://pqgotest:password@localhost/pqgotest?sslmode=verify-full
EGO_EDITOR	The custom text editor to use.	Windows: notepad.exe, Linux/Unix: vi	nano
OAUTH2_GET_TOKEN_URL	Base URL for get OAuth 2 access token.		https://api.example.com/auth/v1/oauth2/token
OPENAI_API_KEY	Set up the API key to use OpenAI API.

Examples [↑]

A list of useful examples can be found here.

Custom System Prompts [↑]

In the ${HOME}/.egpt folder, you can create or edit a .system file to customize the system prompt.

If the file contains data and exists, it will be used as the default for the ask command if the --system flag is not defined.

To edit the file, execute the following command in your terminal:

./egpt env -s -e

Keep in mind that additional prompt information, such as time and timezone, will be added automatically. Use the --no-sys-info and/or --no-time CLI flags to prevent this.

To reset the prompt to the default, delete the file or fill it with whitespace only (make it "empty").

Credits [↑]

The module makes use of:

• Chatbot UI
• Chroma
• Cobra
• go-pretty
• GoDotEnv
• PostgreSQL driver