GitHub - oskob/clud: Lightweight tool that turns natural language into ready-to-run shell commands using an LLM.

2 min read Original article ↗

clud is a lightweight tool that turns natural language into ready-to-run shell commands using an LLM.

It is designed for fast terminal workflows with a safety step before execution.

Features

  • Natural language to shell command
  • Interactive setup (--setup)
  • Install as a global command (--install)
  • BYOK model access (Bring Your Own Key)
  • Supports Gemini, Claude, and OpenAI (Codex/GPT models)
  • Always asks for confirmation before running the generated command

Requirements

  • bash
  • curl
  • python3

Quick Start (Try It Locally)

Run directly from the repo:

Then run setup when prompted (or explicitly with sh clud.sh -s) and provide your API key.

Install

Install with interactive path/name confirmation:

Installing will put clud.sh in PATH as an executable and default to reading config from ~/.clud.env.

Usage

clud will always confirm before executing:

> clud convert file movie.mov to h264 optimized for web and write to out.mp4
Suggested command:
  ffmpeg -i movie.mov -c:v libx264 -preset medium -crf 23 -c:a aac -b:a 128k out.mp4

Run it? [y/N]

More examples:

clud list files sorted by size
clud find all .log files modified in last 24 hours
clud show top 10 processes by memory usage

Configuration

clud uses environment-style config files to store settings and API keys.

Read order:

  1. CLUD_CONFIG (Environment variable)
  2. ./.clud.env
  3. ~/.clud.env

Flags

  • -h, --help — show help
  • -s, --setup — run interactive setup
  • -i, --install — install globally
  • --doctor — check dependencies and config health

BYOK (Bring Your Own Key)

No need for more subscriptions. Use your own API key.

Supported providers:

  • Google Gemini
  • Anthropic Claude
  • OpenAI ChatGPT

Safety Note

Read all suggested commands before executing, and in case of uncertainty, run it on someone else's computer first.