{"slug": "meet-flash-cli-a-free-local-ai-agent-for-your-terminal", "title": "Meet FLASH CLI, a Free Local AI Agent for Your Terminal", "summary": "A developer has released FLASH CLI (Fast Local Agent SHell), a free AI-powered command-line assistant that runs entirely on local or self-hosted Ollama models without requiring an API key, subscription, or cloud connection. The tool can execute shell commands, plan and act iteratively, and supports optional configuration via a .flash.env file. It is tested across Linux, macOS, and Windows on Python 3.10-3.12.", "body_md": "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?\n\nThat 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.\n\nFLASH gives the model a tight, powerful toolset:\n\nIt loops through plan, act, and observe until the job is done, then answers in rendered Markdown with syntax highlighting.\n\nOptional configuration lives in ~/.flash.env:\n\n```\nMODEL=llama3.1\nOLLAMA_HOST=http://localhost:11434\n```\n\nAsk a question and let it work:\n\n```\n[Flash]> what are the biggest files here?\nThinking: check the OS, then find the largest files\nRetrieving operating system information\nExecuting shell command: du -ah . | sort -rh | head -3\n…\n```\n\nRun a command yourself with the ! prefix, no AI in the loop:\n\n```\n[Flash]> !git status\nOn branch main\nnothing to commit, working tree clean\n```\n\nCheck or switch your backend on the fly:\n\n```\n[Flash]> /model\nModel: llama3.1\nHost:  http://localhost:11434\n```\n\nHandy built-in commands: /help, /model, /clear, and /bye.\n\nFLASH 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.\n\nI made a short cinematic walkthrough of everything that you can watch above.\n\nIf a private, local, zero-cost AI shell sounds like your kind of tool, give it a spin and drop a star.\n\nRepo: [https://github.com/Natuworkguy/Flash](https://github.com/Natuworkguy/Flash)\n\nYour AI. Your machine. Your rules.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/meet-flash-cli-a-free-local-ai-agent-for-your-terminal", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/natuworkguy/meet-flash-cli-a-free-local-ai-agent-for-your-terminal-od1", "published_at": "2026-07-28 21:10:22+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-28 22:05:27.733576+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "developer-tools", "artificial-intelligence", "large-language-models"], "entities": ["FLASH CLI", "Ollama", "Natuworkguy", "GitHub"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/meet-flash-cli-a-free-local-ai-agent-for-your-terminal", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/meet-flash-cli-a-free-local-ai-agent-for-your-terminal.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/meet-flash-cli-a-free-local-ai-agent-for-your-terminal.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/meet-flash-cli-a-free-local-ai-agent-for-your-terminal.jsonld"}}