Proposal: Official Venice CLI

[jonisjongithub]

Summary

I've built a comprehensive, production-ready CLI for Venice AI and would like to propose it for official adoption.

Reference Implementation: https://github.com/jonisjongithub/venice-cli

Why an Official CLI?

1. Developer Adoption — CLIs are the native interface for developers. Lowers barrier to integration
2. Privacy Differentiator — "No browser, no tracking" reinforces Venice's privacy-first values
3. Competitive Parity — OpenAI and Anthropic have robust CLIs; this is table stakes
4. Workflow Integration — Enables piping, scripting, CI/CD integration

Features Implemented

Core Commands

• venice chat — Chat with streaming, models, system prompts
• venice search — Web search with AI synthesis
• venice image — Generate images with save-to-file
• venice upscale — Image upscaling
• venice tts — Text-to-speech with multiple voices
• venice transcribe — Speech-to-text
• venice embeddings — Vector embeddings
• venice models — List/filter models

Advanced Features

• ✅ Config file support (~/.venice/config.json)
• ✅ Streaming with spinners and TTY detection
• ✅ Function calling with 6 built-in tools
• ✅ Character personas (8 characters)
• ✅ Conversation history with --continue
• ✅ Output formats (pretty, json, markdown, raw)
• ✅ Usage tracking with statistics
• ✅ Shell completions (bash, zsh, fish)
• ✅ Retry logic with offline detection

Technical Details

• Language: TypeScript with strict mode
• Runtime: Node.js 18+
• Framework: Commander.js
• Lines of Code: ~3,600 across 17 source files
• License: MIT

Documentation Included

• Comprehensive README.md
• CONTRIBUTING.md with guidelines
• PROPOSAL.md (detailed RFC)
• Help text for all commands

Next Steps

Happy to:

1. Transfer the repo to the veniceai org
2. Submit as a PR to a new venice-cli repo
3. Continue maintaining as a community project with official endorsement

Looking forward to your feedback!