Quick Start

Get up and running with AetherShell in 5 minutes.

Launch the Shell

# Interactive REPL
ae

# TUI mode (rich terminal interface)
ae --tui

# Execute a file
ae script.ae

# Evaluate an expression
ae -e '[1,2,3] | map(fn(x) => x * 2)'

Basic Syntax

Variables

# Immutable by default
let name = "Alice"
let numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
let config = { host: "localhost", port: 8080 }

# Mutable when needed
let mut counter = 0
counter = counter + 1

Types

AetherShell has a rich type system:

# Primitives
let n = 42           # Int
let f = 3.14         # Float
let s = "hello"      # String
let b = true         # Bool

# Collections
let arr = [1, 2, 3]           # Array[Int]
let rec = { x: 1, y: 2 }      # Record
let table = [[1,"a"], [2,"b"]] # Table

# Functions
let double = fn(x) => x * 2   # Lambda

Pipelines

The power of AetherShell is in pipelines:

# Traditional pipeline
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
  | filter(fn(x) => x > 2)
  | map(fn(x) => x * 10)
  | sum()
# Result: 120

# File operations
ls "src"
  | where(fn(f) => f.extension == "rs")
  | sort_by("size")
  | take(5)
  | select("name", "size")

Pattern Matching

let describe = fn(x) => match {
    0 => "zero",
    n if n < 0 => "negative",
    n if n > 100 => "large",
    _ => "normal"
}

describe(42)  # "normal"
describe(-5)  # "negative"

AI Features

Simple Query

# Ask the AI a question
ai("What is the capital of France?")

# With specific model
ai("Explain monads", { model: "claude-3-sonnet" })

Run an Agent

agent takes a goal, not a persona, and returns the final answer as a string. It is not a callable object: there is no let a = agent(...) then a("...").

# A goal, with no tools
agent("Explain what this project builds")

# A goal, with the builtins it may call
agent("Find all TODO comments under src/", ["ls", "grep", "cat"])

Shell commands are default-deny; export AGENT_ALLOW_CMDS before starting ae to permit any. See Creating Agents.

Set Up AI Provider

# Set environment variable
env_set("OPENAI_API_KEY", "sk-...")

# Or use the config
# ~/.config/aethershell/config.toml

Common Commands

Example Script

Save as example.ae:

# Fetch and process data
let response = http_get("https://api.github.com/repos/nervosys/AetherShell")
let repo = json_parse(response.body)

print("Repository: " + repo.full_name)
print("Stars: " + string(repo.stargazers_count))
print("Language: " + repo.language)

# Find large files in the project
let large_files = ls "."
  | where(fn(f) => f.size > 10000)
  | sort_by("size", "desc")
  | take(10)

print("\nLargest files:")
large_files | each(fn(f) => print("  " + f.name + ": " + string(f.size) + " bytes"))

Run it:

ae example.ae

Next Steps

• Language Guide - Deep dive into the syntax
• AI Integration - Set up AI providers
• Builtins Reference - All available commands