GPTel is a simple Large Language Model chat client for Emacs, with support for multiple models/backends.

General usage: (YouTube Demo)

Multi-LLM support demo:

• It’s async and fast, streams responses.
• Interact with LLMs from anywhere in Emacs (any buffer, shell, minibuffer, wherever)
• LLM responses are in Markdown or Org markup.
• Supports conversations and multiple independent sessions.
• Save chats as regular Markdown/Org/Text files and resume them later.
• You can go back and edit your previous prompts or LLM responses when continuing a conversation. These will be fed back to the model.

GPTel uses Curl if available, but falls back to url-retrieve to work without external dependencies.

• Installation
  • Straight
  • Manual
  • Doom Emacs
  • Spacemacs
• Setup
  • ChatGPT
  • Other LLM backends
    • Azure
    • GPT4All
    • Ollama
    • Gemini
    • Llama.cpp or Llamafile
• Usage
  • In any buffer:
  • In a dedicated chat buffer:
    • Save and restore your chat sessions
• FAQ
  • I want the window to scroll automatically as the response is inserted
  • I want the cursor to move to the next prompt after the response is inserted
  • I want to change the prefix before the prompt and response
  • Why another LLM client?
• Additional Configuration
• The gptel API
  • Extensions using GPTel
• Alternatives
• Breaking Changes
• Acknowledgments

GPTel is on MELPA. Ensure that MELPA is in your list of sources, then install gptel with M-x package-install⏎ gptel.

(Optional: Install markdown-mode.)

(straight-use-package 'gptel)

(package! gptel)

(use-package! gptel
 :config
 (setq! gptel-api-key "your key"))

Procure an OpenAI API key.

Optional: Set gptel-api-key to the key. Alternatively, you may choose a more secure method such as:

• Storing in ~/.authinfo. By default, “api.openai.com” is used as HOST and “apikey” as USER.

  machine api.openai.com login apikey password TOKEN
      

• Setting it to a function that returns the key.

(gptel-make-azure
 "Azure-1"                              ;Name, whatever you'd like
 :protocol "https"                      ;optional -- https is the default
 :host "YOUR_RESOURCE_NAME.openai.azure.com"
 :endpoint "/openai/deployments/YOUR_DEPLOYMENT_NAME/chat/completions?api-version=2023-05-15" ;or equivalent
 :stream t                              ;Enable streaming responses
 :key #'gptel-api-key
 :models '("gpt-3.5-turbo" "gpt-4"))

(setq-default gptel-backend
              (gptel-make-azure
               "Azure-1"
               ...))

(gptel-make-gpt4all
 "GPT4All"                              ;Name of your choosing
 :protocol "http"                       
 :host "localhost:4891"                 ;Where it's running
 :models '("mistral-7b-openorca.Q4_0.gguf")) ;Available models

;; OPTIONAL configuration
(setq-default gptel-model "mistral-7b-openorca.Q4_0.gguf" ;Pick your default model
              gptel-backend (gptel-make-gpt4all "GPT4All" :protocol ...))
(setq-default gptel-max-tokens 500)

(gptel-make-ollama
 "Ollama"                               ;Any name of your choosing
 :host "localhost:11434"                ;Where it's running
 :models '("mistral:latest")            ;Installed models
 :stream t)                             ;Stream responses

;; OPTIONAL configuration
(setq-default gptel-model "mistral:latest" ;Pick your default model
              gptel-backend (gptel-make-ollama "Ollama" :host ...))

;; :key can be a function that returns the API key.
(gptel-make-gemini
 "Gemini"
 :key "YOUR_GEMINI_API_KEY"
 :stream t)

;; OPTIONAL configuration
(setq-default gptel-model "gemini-pro" ;Pick your default model
              gptel-backend (gptel-make-gemini "Gemini" :host ...))

(gptel-make-openai                    ;Not a typo, same API as OpenAI
 "llama-cpp"                          ;Any name
 :stream t                            ;Stream responses
 :protocol "http"
 :host "localhost:8000"               ;Llama.cpp server location, typically localhost:8080 for Llamafile
 :models '("test"))                   ;Any names, doesn't matter for Llama

(setq-default gptel-backend (gptel-make-openai "llama-cpp" ...)
              gptel-model   "test")

(This is also a video demo showing various uses of gptel.)

1. Call M-x gptel-send to send the text up to the cursor. The response will be inserted below. Continue the conversation by typing below the response.
2. If a region is selected, the conversation will be limited to its contents.
3. Call M-x gptel-send with a prefix argument to

• set chat parameters (GPT model, directives etc) for this buffer,
• to read the prompt from elsewhere or redirect the response elsewhere,
• or to replace the prompt with the response.

With a region selected, you can also rewrite prose or refactor code from here:

Code:

Prose:

1. Run M-x gptel to start or switch to the chat buffer. It will ask you for the key if you skipped the previous step. Run it with a prefix-arg (C-u M-x gptel) to start a new session.
2. In the gptel buffer, send your prompt with M-x gptel-send, bound to C-c RET.
3. Set chat parameters (LLM provider, model, directives etc) for the session by calling gptel-send with a prefix argument (C-u C-c RET):

That’s it. You can go back and edit previous prompts and responses if you want.

The default mode is markdown-mode if available, else text-mode. You can set gptel-default-mode to org-mode if desired.

Saving the file will save the state of the conversation as well. To resume the chat, open the file and turn on gptel-mode before editing the buffer.

To be minimally annoying, GPTel does not move the cursor by default. Add the following to your configuration to enable auto-scrolling.

(add-hook 'gptel-post-stream-hook 'gptel-auto-scroll)

To be minimally annoying, GPTel does not move the cursor by default. Add the following to your configuration to move the cursor:

(add-hook 'gptel-post-response-hook 'gptel-end-of-response)

You can also call gptel-end-of-response as a command at any time.

Customize gptel-prompt-prefix-alist and gptel-response-prefix-alist. You can set a different pair for each major-mode.

Other Emacs clients for LLMs prescribe the format of the interaction (a comint shell, org-babel blocks, etc). I wanted:

1. Something that is as free-form as possible: query the model using any text in any buffer, and redirect the response as required. Using a dedicated gptel buffer just adds some visual flair to the interaction.
2. Integration with org-mode, not using a walled-off org-babel block, but as regular text. This way the model can generate code blocks that I can run.

GPTel’s default usage pattern is simple, and will stay this way: Read input in any buffer and insert the response below it. Some custom behavior is possible with the transient menu (C-u M-x gptel-send).

For more programmable usage, gptel provides a general gptel-request function that accepts a custom prompt and a callback to act on the response. You can use this to build custom workflows not supported by gptel-send. See the documentation of gptel-request, and the wiki for examples.

These are packages that depend on GPTel to provide additional functionality

• gptel-extensions: Extra utility functions for GPTel.
• ai-blog.el: Streamline generation of blog posts in Hugo.

Other Emacs clients for LLMs include

• chatgpt-shell: comint-shell based interaction with ChatGPT. Also supports DALL-E, executable code blocks in the responses, and more.
• org-ai: Interaction through special #+begin_ai ... #+end_ai Org-mode blocks. Also supports DALL-E, querying ChatGPT with the contents of project files, and more.

There are several more: chatgpt-arcana, leafy-mode, chat.el

• Possible breakage, see #120: If streaming responses stop working for you after upgrading to v0.5, try reinstalling gptel and deleting its native comp eln cache in native-comp-eln-load-path.
• The user option gptel-host is deprecated. If the defaults don’t work for you, use gptel-make-openai (which see) to customize server settings.
• gptel-api-key-from-auth-source now searches for the API key using the host address for the active LLM backend, i.e. “api.openai.com” when using ChatGPT. You may need to update your ~/.authinfo.

• Alexis Gallagher and Diego Alvarez for fixing a nasty multi-byte bug with url-retrieve.
• Jonas Bernoulli for the Transient library.