.TH ASK 1 "July 2026" "ask" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
ask \- answer command-line questions using an LLM
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B ask
[OPTION...] \fIquestion\fR
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B ask
consults an OpenAI-compatible LLM backend to answer questions about
Unix/Linux command-line tools. It has three operating modes.
.PP
In the default (command) mode,
.B ask
identifies the relevant tool, fetches its TLDR page and man page for
context, and returns a single runnable command line with placeholders
for arguments you need to customize.
.PP
In question mode (\fB\-q\fR), it answers general command-line questions
and renders the response in markdown through
.BR glow (1).
.PP
In history mode (\fB\-H\fR), it reads the last 200 lines of your shell
history (\fI~/.zsh_history\fR, \fI~/.bash_history\fR, or
\fI~/.history\fR) and answers questions about commands you have run.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-h
Display help text and exit.
.TP
.B \-q
Question mode. Answer general command-line questions with markdown
output rendered through
.BR glow (1).
.TP
.B \-H
History mode. Answer questions about your shell history.
.TP
.B \-p
Paginate output through
.BR less (1)
with raw character support (\fB\-R\fR).
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B OPENAI_BASE_URL
API endpoint URL.
Default: \fBhttp://10.0.2.145:8090/v1\fR
.TP
.B OPENAI_API_KEY
API key to include as a Bearer token in requests.
Optional, depending on the server.
.TP
.B OPENAI_MODEL
Model identifier to use.
Default: \fBgpt-4o-mini\fR
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
Generate a command to find large files:
.B ask how to find large files
.TP
Explain how rsync works (question mode):
.B ask \-q how does rsync work
.TP
Check recent Docker usage (history mode):
.B ask \-H what command did I use for docker yesterday
.TP
Paginate output with less:
.B ask \-p how to compress a directory
.SH EXIT STATUS
.TP
0
Successful execution.
.TP
1
No question provided, or an API error occurred.
.SH FILES
.TP
.I ~/.zsh_history
.TP
.I ~/.bash_history
.TP
.I ~/.history
Shell history files consulted in \fB\-H\fR mode.
.SH DEPENDENCIES
The following tools are expected at runtime:
.BR tldr (1),
.BR man (1),
.BR col (1),
.BR glow (1),
.BR less (1).
.SH BUGS
Report issues at \fIhttps://github.com/anomalyco/opencode/issues\fR.
.SH AUTHORS
Ole