TerminaI
TerminaI is an AI-powered system operator. You describe what you want; TerminaI inspects your machine, proposes actions, and executes them through governed tools with a deterministic approval ladder and an audit trail.
Status: Public Preview (v0.x) The core operator loop is usable today. Some surfaces (Desktop/Voice/A2A) are still being hardened across platforms. Expect power; expect rough edges. Contributions welcome.
Demo
Vision
What if your computer could do things for you safely?
Not just suggesting commands. Not just generating scripts. Actually operating your system: diagnosing issues, fixing problems, and orchestrating workflows — with guardrails that make execution trustworthy.
For years, “internet help” meant co…
TerminaI
TerminaI is an AI-powered system operator. You describe what you want; TerminaI inspects your machine, proposes actions, and executes them through governed tools with a deterministic approval ladder and an audit trail.
Status: Public Preview (v0.x) The core operator loop is usable today. Some surfaces (Desktop/Voice/A2A) are still being hardened across platforms. Expect power; expect rough edges. Contributions welcome.
Demo
Vision
What if your computer could do things for you safely?
Not just suggesting commands. Not just generating scripts. Actually operating your system: diagnosing issues, fixing problems, and orchestrating workflows — with guardrails that make execution trustworthy.
For years, “internet help” meant copy instructions from a chat window, paste into your terminal, and hope you didn’t miss a step. Coding tools beginning with Cursor and Aider largely eliminated that for software development — but the rest of your computer is still stuck in the copy/paste era.
Resolving computer issues or setting up servers or doing end-to-end automated workflows or doing anything on computer beyond coding ??? Majority of users still just copy paste instructions from ChatGPT.
TerminaI is the next interface: you state intent, it proposes a governed plan, you approve at the right level, and it executes with an audit trail. Less ceremony. Fewer fragile steps. More outcomes — without handing your machine to an unchecked agent.
Why this exists
Computers are powerful, but operating them still requires memorizing syntax, hunting through logs, and repeating the same diagnosis steps.
TerminaI compresses the gap between intent and execution — without turning your machine into an uncontrolled “agent.”
Intent → Governed plan → Approval → Execution → Audit
Who it’s for
- Generalist users — “Review the largest files in my downloads folder, prioritizing the oldest first, i need to free up 200 GB of space.” “What is wrong with my internet; reset my adapter.” “Setup a HP printer.” "Monitor the stock price of NVDA and alert me when it hits xx$". "Why is my system so slow? Can you free up memory" "Can you install the best markdown viewer on my linux machine?". "I just re-installed Windows. Find specific drivers for my GPU and install them".
- Newbie developers — “Set up my machine for this repo.” “Fix my dev environment.” “Explain what broke and how to recover.” "Install all the dependencies for this project"
- Tech purists — AI leverage with deterministic guardrails, explicit approvals, and tamper-evident logs.
- Professional engineers / DevOps — Remotely control your servers, repeatable workflows, headless-friendly CLI, safer execution, readable audit trails.
Two ways to use TerminaI
- CLI: the canonical interface for developers, power users, and headless environments.
- Desktop: a Tauri wrapper around the same engine (GUI + voice surface). Linux/Windows are MVP; macOS is coming soon.
The canonical command is terminai.
What makes TerminaI different
AI system operation must be governed. We took the experimental Gemini CLI and rebuilt it as a production-grade runtime.
- Adaptive "System 2" Brain: Doesn’t just guess; it thinks. Uses dynamic cognitive frameworks (Consensus, Sequential, Reflection) to solve complex tasks.
- Provider Agnostic: Decoupled from Google-locked infrastructure. Supports Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, and local models.
- Production Stability: Patched critical upstream memory leaks and race conditions. Built for long-running sessions.
- True PTY Support: Handles interactive applications (vim, htop, ssh) correctly via
node-pty. - Governed Autonomy: Strict Policy Engine and Approval Ladder (A/B/C) replace "yolo" execution.
- Enterprise Audit: High-throughput JSONL structured logs with tamper-evident intent tracking.
- Deep Extensibility: First-class support for MCP and an Agent-to-Agent (A2A) control plane.
- Multi-Surface: Available as a headless CLI for servers and a Native Desktop App (Linux/Windows) with voice control.
- Remote Ready: Securely operate headless instances via the A2A protocol.
Install
CLI (npm)
Prereqs: Node.js 20+
npm i -g @terminai/cli
terminai --version
terminai
If you don’t see the CLI package yet (or want bleeding-edge), install from source below.
Desktop (installers)
Download installers from GitHub Releases:
Git clone and build
git clone https://github.com/terminai/terminai.git
cd terminai
npm install
npm run build
Quick start
TerminaI supports Gemini (default) and OpenAI-compatible providers.
Note: Although the authentication wizard supports multiple providers, Gemini remains the most extensively tested and stable implementation. Gemini was prioritized to ensure accessibility, as its free-tier credits allow for broad adoption without immediate cost barriers.
Gemini
export TERMINAI_API_KEY="..."
terminai
OpenAI-compatible providers
Configure llm.provider and llm.openaiCompatible in ~/.terminai/settings.json (legacy ~/.gemini/settings.json is still supported).
See: docs-terminai/multi-llm-support.md
Safety model (high level)
TerminaI routes execution through governed tools and a deterministic approval ladder:
- Level A: safe/reversible actions (no approval)
- Level B: mutating actions (explicit approval)
- Level C: destructive or high-risk actions (explicit approval + PIN)
Audit logs are written to ~/.terminai/logs/audit/ (JSONL). Runtime/session logs live in ~/.terminai/logs/.
High-level flow:
User intent -> policy engine -> approval -> tool execution -> audit
Documentation
Start here:
docs-terminai/quickstart.mddocs-terminai/configuration.mddocs-terminai/troubleshooting.mddocs-terminai/voice.mddocs-terminai/multi-llm-support.md
Contributor and security references:
AGENTS.mdCONTRIBUTING.mdSECURITY.md
Architecture (monorepo)
packages/
├── core/ # Engine: tools, policy, routing, telemetry
├── cli/ # Terminal UI (Ink/React)
├── desktop/ # Tauri app + PTY bridge
├── a2a-server/ # Agent-to-Agent control plane
├── termai/ # `terminai` launcher
└── cloud-relay/ # Cloud relay server (optional)
Development
Prereqs:
- Node.js 20+
- Rust (latest stable) for Desktop builds
- Platform-specific build tools (see below)
First-time setup (auto-installs dependencies):
npm ci
npm run setup:dev
This detects your OS and installs the required build tools:
- Windows: Visual Studio Build Tools (C++ workload), WebView2
- Linux: build-essential, webkit2gtk, libappindicator, librsvg
- macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools
Build and run the CLI from source:
npm run build
npm start
Desktop dev:
npm run desktop:dev
# Or: cd packages/desktop && npm run tauri dev
Lineage
TerminaI is a community fork of Google’s Gemini CLI:
License and trademarks
- License: Apache-2.0 (see
LICENSE) - Trademark: see
TRADEMARK.md