ocli

A simple command-line interface for the Ollama API, written in Rust.

Features

• Communication with the Ollama API
• Streaming of model responses
• Session handling (saving and reusing context)
• Interactive mode
• Configuration via TOML file (optional)
• Verbose mode for debugging and performance metrics

Installation

cargo install --git https://github.com/sionik/ocli

Or clone the repository and install it locally:

git clone https://github.com/sionik/ocli
cd ocli
cargo install --path .

Usage

Basic Usage

# Make a request to the default model
ocli ask "Explain quantum physics in simple terms"

# Make a request with a specific model
ocli -m llama3 ask "What's the difference between Rust and Go?"

# Make a request with non-streaming mode
ocli ask --no-stream "Tell me a story"

# Save context in a session
ocli ask -s mySession "Who was Albert Einstein?"
ocli ask -s mySession "What were his most important contributions?"

# Enable verbose mode to see performance metrics
ocli -v ask "How does quantum computing work?"

# Use a different Ollama API URL
ocli -u http://ollama.example.com:11434 ask "Hello, how are you?"

Interactive Mode

# Start interactive mode
ocli interactive

# Start interactive mode with a specific session
ocli interactive -s mySession

# Start interactive mode with verbose metrics
ocli -v interactive

# Start interactive mode with a custom Ollama API URL
ocli -u http://remote-ollama:11434 interactive

Session Management

# List all saved sessions
ocli sessions

# Delete a session
ocli delete-session mySession

Configuration

By default, ocli uses the default settings without a configuration file. You can output the default configuration and redirect it to a file:

# Create configuration file in the default location
mkdir -p ~/.config/ocli
ocli print-config > ~/.config/ocli/config.toml

# Print your current configuration (including CLI overrides)
ocli -m llama3 -u http://custom-ollama:11434 print-config > my-config.toml

# Print all configuration options (even defaults)
ocli print-config --all > full-config.toml

# Or on Windows
mkdir -p %APPDATA%\ocli
ocli print-config > %APPDATA%\ocli\config.toml

The default locations for the configuration file are:

• Linux/macOS: ~/.config/ocli/config.toml
• Windows: C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\ocli\config.toml

You can also explicitly specify the path to the configuration file:

ocli --config /path/to/config.toml ask "Hello, how are you?"

Example of a configuration file:

# Configuration file for ocli

# api_url = "http://localhost:11434"
model = "gemma3"
# num_ctx = 4096

Parameters

• -m, --model <MODEL>: The model to use
• -u, --api-url <URL>: Ollama API URL (default: http://localhost:11434)
• -n, --num_ctx <NUM_CTX>: Size of the context window (number of tokens)
• -s, --session <SESSION>: Session ID for storing context
• --config <CONFIG>: Path to the configuration file
• --no-stream: Disables streaming mode for responses (only with ask command)
• -v, --verbose: Enables verbose output with performance metrics

Commands

• ask: Makes a request to the model
• interactive: Starts interactive mode
• sessions: Lists all saved sessions
• delete-session: Deletes a session
• print-config: Outputs the current configuration
  • --all: Include all settings, even those with default values