{"id":15169637,"url":"https://github.com/yaph/charla","last_synced_at":"2026-03-09T20:02:24.323Z","repository":{"id":246449246,"uuid":"821132128","full_name":"yaph/charla","owner":"yaph","description":"A terminal based chat application that works with AI language models.","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2025-12-03T20:11:53.000Z","size":175,"stargazers_count":12,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":0,"subscribers_count":1,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2026-01-05T01:26:51.944Z","etag":null,"topics":["chat-client","chatbot","chatgpt","cli","github-models","llama","llm","ollama","terminal"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"https://geeksta.net/geeklog/charla-introduction/","language":"Python","has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"mit","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/yaph.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":"CHANGELOG.md","contributing":null,"funding":".github/FUNDING.yml","license":"LICENSE.txt","code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null,"zenodo":null,"notice":null,"maintainers":null,"copyright":null,"agents":null,"dco":null,"cla":null},"funding":{"custom":"https://www.paypal.me/rgmz","github":"yaph"}},"created_at":"2024-06-27T22:05:24.000Z","updated_at":"2025-12-03T20:11:56.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2025-08-05T21:16:22.296Z","dependency_job_id":"62a4de81-5c35-4572-b788-44ddf21478b8","html_url":"https://github.com/yaph/charla","commit_stats":{"total_commits":130,"total_committers":1,"mean_commits":130.0,"dds":0.0,"last_synced_commit":"e4e77827e2ff99efba5ad9425af3182df5ac8bc8"},"previous_names":["yaph/charla"],"tags_count":9,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"purl":"pkg:github/yaph/charla","repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/yaph%2Fcharla","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/yaph%2Fcharla/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/yaph%2Fcharla/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/yaph%2Fcharla/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/yaph","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/yaph/charla/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","sbom_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/yaph%2Fcharla/sbom","scorecard":null,"host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":286080680,"owners_count":30309999,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2026-03-09T17:35:44.120Z","status":"ssl_error","status_checked_at":"2026-03-09T17:35:43.707Z","response_time":61,"last_error":"SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 peeraddr=140.82.121.5:443 state=error: unexpected eof while reading","robots_txt_status":"success","robots_txt_updated_at":"2025-07-24T06:49:26.215Z","robots_txt_url":"https://github.com/robots.txt","online":false,"can_crawl_api":true,"host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["chat-client","chatbot","chatgpt","cli","github-models","llama","llm","ollama","terminal"],"created_at":"2024-09-27T07:04:13.957Z","updated_at":"2026-03-09T20:02:24.293Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/yaph.png","language":"Python","funding_links":["https://www.paypal.me/rgmz","https://github.com/sponsors/yaph"],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# Charla: Chat with Language Models in a Terminal\n\n[![PyPI - Version](https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/charla.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/charla)\n[![PyPI - Python Version](https://img.shields.io/pypi/pyversions/charla.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/charla)\n\n**Charla** is a terminal based application for chatting with language models. Charla integrates with Ollama and GitHub Models for exchanging messages with model services.\n\n![preview](https://geeksta.net/img/tools/charla-chat-demo.gif)\n\n## Features\n\n* Terminal-based chat system that supports context aware conversations with language models.\n* Support for local and cloud models via Ollama and GitHub Models.\n* Chat messages are automatically saved during and at the end of chat sessions.\n* Saved chat sessions can be continued.\n* Prompt history is saved and previously entered prompts are auto-suggested.\n* Switch between single-line and multi-line input modes without interrupting the chat session.\n* Store user preferences in user config or current directory settings files.\n* Provide a system prompt for a chat session.\n* Load content from local files and web pages to append to prompts.\n* Markdown in assistant responses and system prompts is rendered in the terminal.\n\n## Installation\n\nTo use Charla with models on your computer, you need a running installation of the [Ollama server](https://ollama.com/download) and at least one supported language model must be installed. For [GitHub Models](https://github.com/marketplace/models) you need access to the service and a GitHub token. Please refer to the documentation of the service provider you want to use for installation and setup instructions.\n\nInstall Charla using `pipx`:\n\n```console\npipx install charla\n```\n\nFor GitHub models, set the environment variable GITHUB_TOKEN to your token. In Bash enter:\n\n```console\nexport GITHUB_TOKEN=YOUR_GITHUB_TOKEN\n```\n\n## Usage\n\nAfter successful installation and setup you can launch the chat console with the `charla` command in your terminal.\n\nIf you use Charla with Ollama, the default provider, you only need to specify the model to use, e.g.:\n\n```console\ncharla -m gpt-oss\n```\n\nTo use Ollama cloud models, you need to run them once with the `ollama` command and then you can use them, e.g.:\n\n```console\nollama run gpt-oss:cloud\ncharla -m gpt-oss:cloud\n```\n\nIf you want to use GitHub Models, you have to set the provider:\n\n```console\ncharla -m gpt-4o --provider github\n```\n\nYou can set a default model and change the default provider in your user settings file.\n\n## Settings\n\nSettings can be specified as command line arguments and in the settings files. Command line arguments have the highest priority. The location of your user config settings file depends on your operating system. Use the following command to show the location:\n\n```console\ncharla settings --location\n```\n\nYou can also store settings in the current working directory in a file named `.charla.json`. The settings in this local override the user config settings.\n\nTo save the current settings to a `.charla.json` file in the current directory, use the `--save` argument:\n\n```console\ncharla settings --save\n```\n\nExample settings for using OpenAI's GPT-4o model and the GitHub Models service by default.\n\n```json\n{\n    \"model\": \"gpt-4o\",\n    \"chats_path\": \"./chats\",\n    \"prompt_history\": \"./prompt-history.txt\",\n    \"provider\": \"github\",\n    \"message_limit\": 20,\n    \"multiline\": false\n}\n```\n\n## CLI Help\n\nOutput of `charla -h` with information on all available command line options.\n\n\u003c!-- START: DO NOT EDIT --\u003e\n```text\nusage: charla [-h] [--model MODEL] [--chats-path CHATS_PATH] [--continue-chat CONTINUE_CHAT]\n                             [--prompt-history PROMPT_HISTORY] [--provider PROVIDER] [--message-limit MESSAGE_LIMIT]\n                             [--multiline] [--system-prompt SYSTEM_PROMPT] [--think {true,false,low,medium,high}] [--version]\n                             {convert,settings} ...\n\nChat with language models.\n\npositional arguments:\n  {convert,settings}    Sub Commands\n    convert             Convert chat file to markdown.\n    settings            Show current settings.\n\noptions:\n  -h, --help            show this help message and exit\n  --model MODEL, -m MODEL\n                        Name of language model to chat with.\n  --chats-path CHATS_PATH\n                        Directory to store chats.\n  --continue-chat CONTINUE_CHAT, -c CONTINUE_CHAT\n                        File that contains chat to continue.\n  --prompt-history PROMPT_HISTORY\n                        File to store prompt history.\n  --provider PROVIDER   Name of the provider to use.\n  --message-limit MESSAGE_LIMIT\n                        Maximum number of messages to use for context.\n  --multiline           Use multiline mode.\n  --system-prompt SYSTEM_PROMPT, -sp SYSTEM_PROMPT\n                        File that contains system prompt to use.\n  --think {true,false,low,medium,high}\n                        Enable thinking for Ollama models that support it.\n  --version             show program's version number and exit\n\n```\n\u003c!-- END: DO NOT EDIT --\u003e\n\n## Development\n\nRun the command-line interface directly from the project source without installing the package:\n\n```console\npython -m charla.cli\n```\n\n## License\n\nCharla is distributed under the terms of the [MIT](https://spdx.org/licenses/MIT.html) license.\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fyaph%2Fcharla","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fyaph%2Fcharla","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fyaph%2Fcharla/lists"}