What it does

TerminalGPT is an npm-installable CLI (tgpt) that turns your terminal into a chat window. Run tgpt chat, paste your API key once, and type prompts that get shipped off to a remote LLM. It stores conversation history locally and lets you wipe it with tgpt delete. That’s the whole pitch.

The interesting bit

The project is aggressively thin — it’s basically an HTTP client with a readline interface — which is arguably the feature. No browser, no Electron, no VS Code extension. Just npx terminalgpt if you don’t even want to commit to an install. The README lists support for four providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, Gemini), though it doesn’t explain how to switch between them or whether they need different flags.

Key highlights

• One-shot usage via npx terminalgpt without global install
• Supports multiple LLM backends, at least on paper
• Conversation history persists across sessions until manually deleted
• First-run API key prompt means no config-file archaeology
• 1,024 GitHub stars suggests plenty of developers wanted exactly this little

Caveats

• The README is vague on how to select non-OpenAI providers; the “Options” and “Commands” sections are essentially empty headers
• No mention of pricing guards, token limits, or streaming responses

Verdict

Grab this if your workflow lives in tmux and you want quick answers without context-switching. Skip it if you need multi-line editing, file attachments, or any sophistication beyond “type, wait, read.”