Cloud AI coding tools are powerful, but they also come with a bill, an API key, and a quiet upload of your source code to someone else's servers. What if your AI assistant ran entirely on your own machine instead?
That is FLASH CLI (Fast Local Agent SHell): an AI-powered command-line assistant that talks to local or self-hosted Ollama models and can actually run shell commands for you. No API key. No subscription. No cloud.
FLASH gives the model a tight, powerful toolset:
It loops through plan, act, and observe until the job is done, then answers in rendered Markdown with syntax highlighting.
Optional configuration lives in ~/.flash.env:
MODEL=llama3.1
OLLAMA_HOST=http://localhost:11434
Ask a question and let it work:
[Flash]> what are the biggest files here?
Thinking: check the OS, then find the largest files
Retrieving operating system information
Executing shell command: du -ah . | sort -rh | head -3
…
Run a command yourself with the ! prefix, no AI in the loop:
[Flash]> !git status
On branch main
nothing to commit, working tree clean
Check or switch your backend on the fly:
[Flash]> /model
Model: llama3.1
Host: http://localhost:11434
Handy built-in commands: /help, /model, /clear, and /bye.
FLASH is tested on every push across Linux, macOS, and Windows on Python 3.10, 3.11, and 3.12, with Ruff, Flake8, and Bandit keeping it clean and secure.
I made a short cinematic walkthrough of everything that you can watch above.
If a private, local, zero-cost AI shell sounds like your kind of tool, give it a spin and drop a star.
Repo: https://github.com/Natuworkguy/Flash
Your AI. Your machine. Your rules.