🦆 DuckDuckGo AI Chat CLI

🚀 A powerful CLI tool to interact with DuckDuckGo's AI
Advanced context integration, multi-models and enhanced productivity
🧠 Now with Intelligent Analytics, Context Optimization & Persistent History

Features • Installation • Usage • Configuration • Intelligent Features • Reverse Engineering

✨ Key Features

💬 Chat Experience

• 🔄 Real-time streaming - Live response display with smooth markdown formatting
• 🤖 Multiple AI models - GPT-4o mini, Claude 3 Haiku, Llama 3.3, Mistral Small, o4-mini & more
• 💻 Terminal-native - Optimized for command-line workflows with interactive menus
• ⌨️ Smart autocompletion - Interactive command menus and context-aware suggestions
• 🔑 Auto-authentication - Seamless session management with dynamic header refresh
• 🔄 Model switching - Interactive model selection during conversations

🧠 Intelligent Features ✨ NEW

• 📊 Smart Analytics - Real-time session statistics with API monitoring, performance metrics, and usage insights
• 🎯 Context Optimization - Automatic context compression and importance scoring to maintain conversation quality
• 💾 Persistent History - Intelligent session management with compression, recovery, and searchable archive
• 📈 Performance Tracking - Monitor success rates, error patterns, token usage, and optimization effectiveness

🧠 Context Integration

• 🔍 Web search - Integrate DuckDuckGo search results into conversations
• 📄 File processing - Add local file content (15+ formats: Go, Python, JS, TS, JSON, MD, etc.)
• 🌐 URL scraping - Extract and analyze webpage content with Chrome-based scraping
• 🚀 Project analysis - Generate comprehensive project prompts with PMP auto-installation
• 💾 Session persistence - Maintain conversation history across sessions
• 📚 Library management - Organize and search through document collections
• ⛓️ Command Chaining - Chain multiple commands (e.g., /url, /file, /search) using && to build a combined context before sending a final prompt with --.

🛠️ Productivity Tools

• 📋 Smart clipboard - Copy responses, code blocks, or full conversations with interactive selection
• 📤 Advanced export - Save conversations in multiple formats with search-based filtering
• 📝 History management - Browse your conversation history with intelligent search
• 🔍 Content search - Search within conversations and document libraries
• ⚙️ Interactive config - Visual configuration menus for all settings
• 🎨 Rich formatting - Colored output with markdown rendering
• ⚡ Performance - Efficient memory usage and fast response times

🌐 API Server

• 🚀 REST API - Built-in HTTP server for external integrations
• 📡 Real-time endpoints - Chat, history, and status endpoints
• 🔧 Request logging - Configurable API request/response logging
• 📖 Auto-documentation - Interactive API documentation at root endpoint

📚 Library System

• 📁 Document collections - Organize files into searchable libraries
• 🔍 Advanced search - Search across all libraries with pattern matching
• 📊 Library stats - File counts, sizes, and modification dates
• 🎯 Selective loading - Load specific libraries or files into context
• 📁 Multi-format support - 15+ file formats automatically recognized

🔧 Advanced Features

• 🛠️ PMP Integration - Auto-install and use Prompt My Project for code analysis
• 🔄 Dynamic headers - Automatic browser session management
• 📱 Cross-platform - Linux, Windows, macOS support

⛓️ Command Chaining

• 🚀 Chain multiple commands - Execute a series of commands in a single line using &&
• 💡 Context accumulation - Combine context from files, URLs, and web searches
• 🗣️ Final prompt - Use -- to add a final prompt to the accumulated context for the AI to process

# Chain multiple commands to build a rich context before asking a question
You: /url https://devbyben.fr/about && /search devbyben.fr twitter account && /file ~/Documents/my_notes.md -- Based on all this, write a summary.

🧠 Intelligent Features Deep Dive

📊 Session Analytics & Statistics

The CLI now tracks comprehensive real-time metrics:

• Performance Metrics: API call timing, success/failure rates, retry counts
• Content Analysis: Message counts, token estimation, context optimization savings
• Error Tracking: 418/429 error monitoring, VQD refresh rates, header refresh frequency
• Usage Patterns: Command usage statistics, model changes, file/URL processing
• Session Duration: Total time spent in the session, average response times

Commands:

• /stats - View current session analytics anytime
• Automatic display on /exit with detailed session summary

🎯 Smart Context Optimization

Automatically manages conversation context for optimal performance:

• Intelligent Compression: Compresses old context when approaching token limits
• Importance Scoring: Preserves critical information while removing redundant content
• Memory Efficiency: Reduces token usage by up to 40% while maintaining quality
• Configurable Thresholds: Customize optimization triggers and compression ratios
• Automatic Context Management: Automatically compresses and optimizes context as needed

💾 Persistent History Management

Never lose important conversations:

• Session Persistence: Automatically saves conversations with metadata
• Compression Storage: Efficient gzip compression reduces storage by 70%
• Session Recovery: Resume conversations from any previous session
• Intelligent Indexing: Fast search and retrieval of historical conversations
• Searchable Archive: Use /history to browse and search past conversations
• Session Loading: Load previous sessions interactively or by ID with /load

🤖 Available Models

📦 Installation

📥 Download Latest Release

🚀 1. Direct Download & Run

$exe="duckduckgo-chat-cli_windows_amd64.exe"; Invoke-WebRequest -Uri ((Invoke-RestMethod "https://api.github.com/repos/benoitpetit/duckduckGO-chat-cli/releases/latest").assets | Where-Object name -like "*windows_amd64.exe").browser_download_url -OutFile $exe; Start-Process -Wait -NoNewWindow -FilePath ".\$exe"

curl -LO $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/benoitpetit/duckduckGO-chat-cli/releases/latest | grep -oP 'https.*linux_amd64' | grep -oP 'https.*v[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+_linux_amd64' | head -1) && chmod +x duckduckgo-chat-cli_v*_linux_amd64 && ./duckduckgo-chat-cli_v*_linux_amd64

curl -LO $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/benoitpetit/duckduckGO-chat-cli/releases/latest | grep -oP 'https.*darwin_arm64' | grep -oP 'https.*v[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+_darwin_arm64' | head -1) && chmod +x duckduckgo-chat-cli_v*_darwin_arm64 && ./duckduckgo-chat-cli_v*_darwin_arm64

curl -LO $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/benoitpetit/duckduckGO-chat-cli/releases/latest | grep -oP 'https.*darwin_amd64' | grep -oP 'https.*v[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+_darwin_amd64' | head -1) && chmod +x duckduckgo-chat-cli_v*_darwin_amd64 && ./duckduckgo-chat-cli_v*_darwin_amd64

🔨 2. Build from source

📋 Prerequisites:

• Go 1.21+ (go version)
• Chrome/Chromium 115+ (chromium-browser --version)

git clone https://github.com/benoitpetit/duckduckGO-chat-cli
cd duckduckGO-chat-cli
./scripts/build.sh

🎯 Usage

📖 Typical Workflow

# Chain multiple commands to build a rich context before asking a question
You: /url https://devbyben.fr/about && /search devbyben.fr twitter account && /file ~/Documents/my_notes.md -- Based on all this, write a summary.

./duckduckgo-chat-cli_linux_amd64
Accept terms? [yes/no] yes
Type /help to show available commands

You: /search Go concurrency patterns -- What are the best practices?
🔍 Searching for: Go concurrency patterns
✅ Added 10 search results to the context
Processing your request about the search results...

You: /file main.go -- Explain this code and suggest improvements
📄 Adding file content: main.go
✅ Successfully added content from file: main.go
Processing your request about the file...

GPT-4o mini: Based on the search results about Go concurrency patterns and your code...
[Detailed analysis follows]

You: /stats
🧠 SESSION ANALYTICS SUMMARY
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
📊 Session Performance
   Duration: 8.5m | Messages: 6 | Avg Response: 1.1s
   API Success Rate: 100% (3/3 calls)
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

You: /copy
Choose what to copy:
1) Last Q&A exchange
2) Largest code block
3) Cancel
Enter your choice: 2
✅ Content copied to clipboard

# List and interactively select a previous session to restore
You: /load

# Or load a session directly by its ID
You: /load 12345

# The chat context and history will be restored for continued conversation.

📝 Command Reference

📝 Prompt Management

• /prompt : Open the interactive prompt management menu (list, add, edit, remove)
• /prompt list : List all saved prompts
• /prompt add <name> -- <prompt> : Add a new prompt
• /prompt edit <name> -- <prompt> : Edit an existing prompt
• /prompt remove <name> : Remove a prompt
• /prompt load <name> : Send the prompt content as a message to the model

Note: /prompt is not chainable and does not support chaining with &&. The -- is only for separating the prompt text, not for chaining.

⚙️ Configuration

🎛️ Application Settings

🔍 Search Settings

📚 Library Settings

📡 API Settings

💡 Tip: Use /config to modify these settings interactively.

🔄 Auto-Update System

The CLI includes an integrated update system that keeps your installation current:

📥 Update Features

• 🔍 Automatic Check: Checks for new versions every 24 hours at startup
• 🔐 SHA256 Verification: Verifies downloaded binaries for security
• 🎯 Cross-Platform: Works on Linux, Windows, and macOS
• ⚡ In-Place Update: Updates the current binary without changing location
• 🔄 Backup & Restore: Creates backups and restores on failure

🎯 Usage

# Check for updates and install (with confirmation)
/update

# Force update without confirmation
/update --force

# The CLI will also prompt you when updates are available:
🆕 A new version is available!
   Current: 1.1.9
   Latest:  1.2.0
💡 Run '/update' to update to the latest version.

🔧 Update Process

1. Detection: Detects your OS and architecture automatically
2. Download: Downloads the correct binary from GitHub releases
3. Verification: Verifies SHA256 checksum for security
4. Installation: Replaces the current binary with the new version
5. Restart: Prompts you to restart the CLI to use the new version

🛠️ Development & Contributing

🚀 Automated Release Process

This project uses GitHub Actions for automated building and releasing:

• Development: Work on the master branch
• Release: Create PR to prod branch to trigger automatic release
• CI/CD: Automated testing, building, and publishing

📚 Development Documentation

• 🔧 CI/CD & Release Process - Complete GitHub Actions documentation
• 🔬 Reverse Engineering - Complete technical reverse engineering documentation

🚨 Troubleshooting

🔧 Connection Issues

If you encounter connection errors:

# Try clearing the conversation context to refresh security tokens
/clear

# Check your Chrome/Chromium installation
chromium-browser --version

# Enable debug mode
DEBUG=true ./duckduckgo-chat-cli_linux_amd64

# View session analytics for debugging
/stats

📜 License & Ethics

🛡️ Privacy & Responsibility

• Privacy First: This tool respects your privacy and stores no personal data
• Verify Information: Always verify critical information from AI responses
• Responsible Use: Use responsibly and in accordance with DuckDuckGo's terms

🔧 This is an unofficial client and not affiliated with or endorsed by DuckDuckGo

Made with ♥ for the community