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hey

talk to your terminal in natural language

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

crates.io downloads license ci

cargo install ai-in-terminal

hey demo

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)