elia

Elia is a terminal user interface for chatting with large language models, providing keyboard-centric access to both cloud-based and local AI models. It supports proprietary models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini through their APIs, as well as local models running through Ollama or LocalAI. Conversations are stored in a local SQLite database for persistence and retrieval.

The tool offers both inline and full-screen chat modes, allowing users to specify models via command-line arguments and customize behavior through a TOML configuration file. Users can configure multiple instances of the same model (e.g., work and personal OpenAI organizations), set custom system prompts, and adjust parameters like temperature and retry limits. The interface supports custom themes defined in YAML files and includes syntax highlighting for code blocks in messages.

Elia includes practical features like ChatGPT conversation import, database reset functionality, and integration with external model providers. The configuration system allows adding custom model endpoints and API keys, making it suitable for developers and AI enthusiasts who prefer terminal-based workflows over web interfaces.

Installation

# via pipx
pipx install --python 3.11 elia-chat