Instruction

This is a simple CLI program to use ChatGPT.

Prerequisites

1. Have an OpenAI API key. Refer to OpenAI website for more info.
2. Add balance in your account.
3. Store your API key to a safe place, for example, ~/.api_key_openai_1.
4. Add below line in your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc (or other shell's equivalent).

export OPENAI_API_KEY="$(cat $HOME/.api_key_openai_1 2>/dev/null || echo '')"

5. Remember to source the API key: source ~/.zshrc or source ~/.bashrc

Usage

Do below if you use the program for the first time.

1. git clone this repo to your computer, then cd into your local repo.
2. Create a Python virtual environment for this repo, activate it, and do pip install -r requirements.txt
3. Make file call_chatgpt_api.py executable: chmod u+x call_chatgpt_api.py
4. Start the program by: ./call_chatgpt_api.py; you can change model by adding -m argument, like: ./call_chatgpt_api.py -m "gpt-4.1"; available model names are on OpenAI website.
5. Type exit or quit in your prompt turn to stop the program.