Use Toskar in the terminal

toskarctl chat holds a conversation with Toskar in any terminal, on this computer or over SSH. It's one of your chats, so it shows in History in the apps, and a chat begun on your phone continues here.

Asked to do something in a folder, such as fixing a failing test, it works step by step and asks before it changes anything. toskarctl connect points a coding agent, such as Claude Code or Codex, at a model on Toskar.

Chat

1. Open a terminal.
2. Run toskarctl chat.
3. Type a message and press Return. The answer shows as it's written, and ends with its speed.
4. Type /exit or press Ctrl-D to leave. The chat stays in History.

With a message after chat, it answers that and leaves, then prints the command that continues the chat:

toskarctl chat "Plan a three-day trip to Juneau"

…Juneau…
Continue this chat: toskarctl chat --resume …

toskarctl chat --resume lists your 10 most recent chats to pick from, including ones from the apps. --resume with a chat's id continues that one. --model and --profile choose who answers from the start.

Hand it a file or a command's output

--file sends a file as data with the first message. Toskar sends it as something to work on, and tells the model to follow your message, not instructions inside the file.

printf 'Buy milk\nCall the dentist\n' > notes.md
toskarctl chat --file notes.md "Turn these into a to-do list"

…
Continue this chat: toskarctl chat --resume …

Pipe a command's output into chat to ask about it. It answers once, with what you piped as the data:

printf 'FAIL: TestSum: got 7, want 9\n' | toskarctl chat "Why did this fail?"

…
Continue this chat: toskarctl chat --resume …

Have it work in a folder

chat works in the folder you start it in, on the computer Toskar runs on. Commands run there, and its file tools reach only that folder. It follows the project's notes in AGENTS.md, TOSKAR.md, or CLAUDE.md, the first one it finds.

Ask it to do something rather than ask a question, such as "Fix the failing test" or "Set up this project", and it works step by step. It runs something, reads the result, fixes what failed, and tries again. It stops when it's finished, when the same step keeps giving the same result, or after 100 steps. Then it says what it did and what's left.

Here is a real session, recorded with Qwen 3.5 9B in a small Go project whose test fails. Toskar looked around, read the code, found the bug, and asked before changing the file. The answer here was n, so nothing changed:

› Fix the failing test
I need to see the failing test and the project structure to help fix it. Let me start by exploring the workspace to find the test files and understand the current state of the codebase.
· Looking for *test*
The search returned no matches, which is strange. Let me check the git status to see if there are any modified files, including tests, and also list the files in the current directory to understand the structure.
· Checking what changed
It seems the workspace is not a git repository. Let me list the files in the current directory to find the test files and understand the project structure.
· Looking for .
I found three files: `go.mod`, `tally.go`, and `tally_test.go`. Let me read the test file first to see what's failing.
· Reading tally_test.go
Now let me read the implementation file `tally.go` to see what the `Sum` function currently does.
· Reading tally.go
The test is failing because the `Sum` function in `tally.go` skips the first element of the slice. It starts the loop at `i := 1` instead of `i := 0`, so it never adds `nums[0]` to the total.

**The Fix:**
Change `for i := 1;` to `for i := 0;` in `tally.go` to include the first element.
Toskar wants to run filesystem.write:
  {
    "content": "package tally\n\n// Sum adds up the numbers.\nfunc Sum(nums []int) int {\n\ttotal := 0\n\tfor i := 0; i \u003c len(nums); i++ {\n\t\ttotal += nums[i]\n\t}\n\treturn total\n}\n",
    "path": "tally.go"
  }
Allow? [y]es, [n]o, [a]lways in this chat: n
I identified the issue in `tally.go`: the loop starts at index 1 instead of 0, skipping the first number. I attempted to fix it by updating the code, but you declined the change. To fix the test, you need to change `for i := 1;` to `for i := 0;` in `tally.go`.
37 tokens/s
› /exit

Warning: Tests and builds run the project's own code. Don't start a task in a project you don't trust, and choose a only for one you do.

Toskar keeps its own record of which checks ran and how they ended. When the last test failed, or a change came after it, the model goes back once to deal with it. Anything still in doubt shows under the answer as "Toskar noticed". The model matters most here: small models often can't finish a task, and chat says which model would do better.

Use Toskar on another computer

Set TOSKAR_URL to the other computer's address and TOSKAR_API_KEY to an API key, then run toskarctl chat as usual. This works over SSH too, with no screen needed. Commands and files are then on the Toskar computer, not this one, and an approval says which computer a command runs on.

Connect a coding agent

A coding agent such as Claude Code or Codex can use a model on Toskar directly, with the agent's own tools. toskarctl connect prints the settings it needs: the address, a key, and the model. Add --write to save them where the agent reads them, without changing its other settings. A step-by-step guide ↗ covers Claude Code and Codex, on this computer and from another one.

toskarctl connect claude-code

# Claude Code with … on Toskar, through Anthropic's Messages format.
# Set these, then run claude; or write them for this folder: toskarctl connect claude-code --write
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:…
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=toskar-local
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL=…
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL=…
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL=…
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL=…

toskarctl connect codex

# Codex CLI with … on Toskar, through OpenAI's Responses format.
…
[model_providers.toskar]
…
wire_api = "responses"
…
model_provider = "toskar"

Without --model, connect picks the best installed model for an agent: one that calls tools, then one made for code, then one that fits this computer well. On this computer no key is needed, so agents get the stand-in toskar-local. For another computer, the key needs raw access, "Drive models directly, for coding agents" in API Access.

Tip: For an editor's own AI features, such as Continue, Cline, Zed, or Copilot Chat, toskarctl connect continue and the like print what to enter in its settings. For Continue, a step-by-step guide ↗ covers it. In VS Code, the Toskar extension sets this up for you (Use Toskar in VS Code).

Troubleshooting