Lectic

Lectic is no-nonsense conversational LLM client. Each conversation is a simple markdown file. That means that each conversation is naturally persistent and can be easily version-controlled, searched, referenced, and managed with existing markdown tools. Lectic aims to support research, reflection, self-study, and design. So Lectic makes it easy to manage conversational context using content references, integrate with MCP servers and other tools (for search, computation, database access, and more) and include multiple LLMs in a single conversation in order to bring a variety of perspectives to bear on a problem.

• If you're using nix, then nix profile install github:gleachkr/lectic will install lectic from the lastest git commit.
• If you're not using nix, but you're using a Linux system (or WSL on windows), you can download an app image from the releases, and place it somewhere on your $PATH.
• If you're on MacOS, you can download a binary from the releases, and place it somewhere on your $PATH.

1. Create a new conversation file with a YAML header:

   ---
   interlocutor:
       name: Assistant
       provider: anthropic|openai|gemini|openrouter|ollama
       prompt: Your base prompt here
   ---
   
   Your initial message here

   To use the remote providers , you'll need ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, GEMINI_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, or OPENROUTER_API_KEY set in your environment. If the provider field is omitted, the default provider will be based on the alphabetically first API key defined in the your environment.

2. Use your text editor to interact with the LLM:

   • In Vim: Use %!lectic to update the conversation
   • In other editors: Set up a key binding or command to pipe the current file through lectic

3. Or, From the command line: lectic -s -f conversation.lec will stream a next message to the console, and lectic -i conversation.lec will update the lectic file in-place.