What is AI Shell?

AI Shell is an interactive shell that provides a chat interface with language models. The shell provides agents that connect to different AI models and other assistance providers. Users can interact with the agents in a conversational manner.

The AI Shell project includes:

• A command-line shell interface (aish)
• A framework for creating AI agents and other assistance providers
• Integration with Windows Terminal and iTerm2 on macOS
• A PowerShell module for integration with PowerShell. For more information, see the AI Shell module.
• Support for MCP servers and tools
• Support for Foundry Local deployments

Each AI assistant is known as an agent. The initial release of AI Shell includes two agents:

• Azure OpenAI agent that connects to an instance of gpt-4o. Use this agent for general AI tasks.
• Copilot in Azure agent that can assist with Microsoft Azure knowledge. Use the Azure agent for assistance with Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell commands.

You can run the AI Shell executable (aish.exe) in a standalone experience or you can use the AIShell PowerShell module with PowerShell 7 to create a split-pane (sidecar) experience with Windows Terminal. The sidecar experience is the recommended way to use AI Shell because you get deeper integration with the shell. These features include:

• The ability to insert code from the AI Shell response directly into the connect command shell
• Multi-step commands are added to the Predictive IntelliSense buffer for quick acceptance
• Simple, single-command error recovery
• MCP integration

Project status

AI Shell is currently a preview release. Some features of the tool are still being developed and are subject to change. For more information about the current version and a complete list of changes, see the Release notes.

Known issues

This current release of AI Shell has some known issues that we're actively working on addressing:

• The sidecar experience only works with Windows Terminal and iTerm2 for macOS.
• AI Shell isn't supported on Linux. You might get it to work but it doesn't support the split terminal integration that you get with Windows Terminal and iTerm2. AI Shell isn't tested on any Linux distribution.
• If you have preview (developer) and stable versions of Windows Terminal installed, the Start-AIShell command opens a new terminal running the stable version of Windows Terminal.
• If you started Window Terminal as an administrator, the Start-AIShell command opens a new terminal window running Windows Terminal without elevation.
• If you're using the default terminal app in macOS, you don't get the sidecar experience and the colors might not render correctly. It might be difficult to read the generated code.

Providing feedback

Your feedback is important to us during this development phase. We encourage you to share your experiences to help us improve AI Shell.

Here are ways you can get involved:

• File Issues: If you encounter bugs, have suggestions for new features, or would like to report inconsistencies, open an issue on the AI Shell GitHub repository.
• Join the discussions: Join our community discussions in the GitHub discussions tab. Share ideas, discuss potential improvements, connect with other users, and share any agents you create.
• Documentation: If you notice any documentation gaps, you can suggest changes or submit PRs to improve our documentation.