47. Using Daalu from your terminal

Chapter 26 covered the browser Coding Assistant — VS Code in a tab, the assistant in the side panel. This chapter covers the other way to use the same agent: the daalu command-line tool, which you install on your own machine and run inside the terminal of your favourite editor, over the code that’s already on your disk.

If you’ve used Claude Code or the GitHub CLI, this will feel familiar: install it once, log in from the terminal, and run daalu in any project folder.

It is the same agent and the same privacy guarantee as the browser Workspace — your prompts and code go only to your own GPU or the Daalu-hosted pool, never to a public LLM. The difference is purely where you work: the CLI edits the files on your laptop, across as many repositories as you like, with no need to push code anywhere first.

When to use the CLI instead of the browser IDE

You can use both — they share your account and your inference tier.

Install

Pick the line that matches your machine. Re-run it any time to upgrade.

Linux / macOS

curl -fsSL https://get.daalu.io/install.sh | sh

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install daalu-io/tap/daalu

Any machine with Python 3.9+

pipx install daalu-cli

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://get.daalu.io/install.ps1 | iex

Check it landed:

daalu --version

If daalu isn’t found after installing, add the install directory to your PATH — the installer prints the exact line to add.

Log in

You have two ways to sign in. Both end with your machine holding a token that acts as you until you revoke it.

Option A — daalu login (opens your browser)

daalu login

This prints a short code and opens your browser to an Authorize this terminal? page. Confirm it, return to your terminal, and you’re signed in. If your company runs Daalu at its own address, point at it:

daalu login --host https://ops.your-company.com

Option B — paste a one-time command (no browser step)

1. In the Daalu web app, open Workspace in the left sidebar.
2. Find the Use Daalu from your terminal card and click Generate one-time login command.
3. Copy the daalu login --code … command it shows and paste it into your terminal.

The command carries a one-time, 10-minute login code tied to your account, so it logs you in immediately — handy when the machine you’re on can’t easily open a browser.

Either way, confirm you’re in:

daalu status

Use it

Change into any project and start the agent:

cd ~/src/my-project
daalu

You’ll get a prompt. Ask it to explain code, make a change, or run something. The agent can:

• Read files in the project (no confirmation — it’s your code).
• Propose a change — it shows you a diff and asks y/N before writing.
• Run a command — it shows the command and asks y/N before running it.

Nothing is written or executed without your yes. And the agent always finishes with an answer: on a big task (“explain this codebase”) it may spend many turns reading files, but when it reaches its per-turn tool budget it stops, summarises what it found, and tells you if it ran out of room — it never silently drops you back at the prompt mid-thought.

Useful in-session commands:

Other things you can do from the shell:

daalu models     # list the coding models available to you
daalu status     # which instance + model you're using
daalu logout     # remove the stored login from this machine

Your privacy, on your laptop too

The CLI sends your prompts to your operator’s Daalu instance, which routes them only to your own GPU or the Daalu-hosted pool — the same rule the browser Workspace follows. Coding prompts are never sent to an external AI provider. The agent only ever touches files inside the project folder you started it in — it refuses paths that escape that folder.

Your login is stored in ~/.daalu/credentials.json on your machine (readable only by you). It’s an ordinary API token: you can see it listed under Settings → API tokens in the web app, named after your machine, and revoke it there at any time to instantly cut off that machine.

Troubleshooting

For the browser-based version of the same assistant, see chapter 26.