Terminal AI

The Devpilot Web Terminal ships with an inline AI assistant that watches what you're doing and offers context-aware help: suggested commands for a task, plain-English explanations of output, and diagnoses for error messages. It's built to reduce the number of trips you make to search engines and man pages mid-session.

Opening the Assistant

Inside any terminal session, click the AI button (or use the keyboard shortcut) to open the AI chat panel alongside your shell. You can type a question, paste an error, or describe what you're trying to do.

What You Can Ask

The assistant is tuned for three common terminal moments:

How It Uses Context

To give useful answers, the assistant builds a short context window from your session:

• Recent commands in the current session (up to the last 10).
• The server's current working directory and connected user, where available.
• Any frontend context the terminal UI passes along (for example, the command output currently on screen).

Every AI interaction is logged to Devpilot for audit — you can see later what you asked and what the assistant suggested.

Quick Suggestions

Besides freeform chat, the assistant has three canned suggestion modes you can invoke:

• commands — Common commands for this kind of server or directory.
• errors — Checks to run when something broke (logs, permissions, syntax).
• help — Reminders like man <command>, --help, systemctl status, journalctl.

These are instant, don't call the AI, and are useful when you just need a nudge.

Safety Model

Terminal AI is built with a conservative safety posture.

• No auto-execution. The assistant can suggest a command, but you always press Enter to run it.
• Dangerous command awareness. Commands that would destroy the server (rm -rf /, mkfs, writing random bytes to /dev/sda, shutdown, and similar) are recognized. If the assistant ever proposes one, it flags the risk prominently.
• Rate limiting. AI chat is capped at 10 requests per minute per session. If you hit the limit, wait about a minute and try again — this prevents accidental loops from eating quota.

Privacy

• Your query text and the assistant's response are logged to Devpilot for audit. You can review past interactions on the session.
• The AI call itself is made through Devpilot's backend to a third-party model provider. Your SSH password and private keys are never included in the prompt.
• Command output you explicitly paste into the chat is sent as part of your question. Treat that the same way you'd treat any other text you send to a third-party assistant — avoid pasting secrets.

What Terminal AI Is Not

• Not an auto-pilot. It won't run a sequence of commands on your behalf or fix things without your confirmation.
• Not a package manager. If you want to install software, use the App Store. Terminal AI will happily explain apt install, but it doesn't replace the App Store's tracking.
• Not persistent across sessions. Context is scoped to the current session's recent commands. New tab, new context.

Next Steps