Using Enkaidu

After starting Enkaidu you can interact with it using predefined commands and tools.

Command line

You can launch Enkaidu with a set of options — which model or provider to use, whether to start the web UI, which config file to load, and more. See Command Line for the full reference, listed most-common-first.

Queries

Unsurprisingly, anything you type in is sent to the current LLM as a prompt.

Current session

The input query shows the name of the current root session. Enkaidu supports separate root sessions you can switch between to work with different AI models as well as nested sessions for branching to do some work in the current session. See “How do Enkaidu sessions work?” for an explainer.

Auto-completion

Since Enkaidu runs locally and is ideal for assissting with files and documents in the current folder, you can use Tab to auto-complete path references for any files in the ./ folder. Start by typing ./ and then use Tab to get a list of what’s there. You can continue to use Tab and Shift-Tab to navigate the list of completions, or just keep typing.

Heads up! Sometimes, if pressing Tab gets no results, press Esc to reset and restart the tab-completion. This is also needed to enter sub-folders.

Prompt history New in 0.9.13

Enkaidu remembers the prompts you’ve submitted in the CLI. While you’re editing a query, press Up to recall your previous prompt (press again to keep walking back through earlier ones) and Down to step forward toward the prompt you’re about to send. History is shared with the Web UI, so prompts you submit in one show up — and are updated — in the other.

Slash Commands

Enter /help to get a list of the slash commands available. They are documented in detail here.

Auto-completion is enabled for slash commands. Type in / and press Tab to see all the available slash commands.

Macros

Enkaidu supports “macros” that you can define to package up and re-run commands and prompts. They are documented in detail here.

Macros are executed by invoking them with the ! prefix (e.g. !my_macro).

Auto-completion is enabled macros as well. Type in ! and press Tab to see all the available macros.

Highlighting

Enkaidu will detect and highlight macro calls and file paths in the prompt as you type.