grepai

Installation

Install grepai on macOS, Linux or Windows (Homebrew, install script, Nix or source), set up Ollama, and enable shell completion.

This page shows how to install the grepai binary and an embedding provider. It takes a few minutes. When you are done, continue with the Quick Start.

Short version for macOS with local embeddings:

brew install yoanbernabeu/tap/grepai
brew install ollama
ollama serve &              # skip if Ollama already runs as an app or service
ollama pull nomic-embed-text
grepai version

Prerequisites

grepai needs an embedding provider to turn code into vectors. Pick one:

  • Ollama (default, local): free, and your code stays on your machine. See Install Ollama below.
  • LM Studio (local): uses the OpenAI-compatible server built into LM Studio.
  • A cloud API: OpenAI, OpenRouter, Synthetic or Requesty. You need an API key.

See Embedders for details on each provider.

Prebuilt binaries are available for Linux, macOS and Windows on amd64 and arm64.

Homebrew (macOS)

brew install yoanbernabeu/tap/grepai

Shell Script (Linux/macOS)

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yoanbernabeu/grepai/main/install.sh | sh

The script downloads the latest release for your OS and architecture and installs it to /usr/local/bin (it uses sudo if that directory is not writable). To install somewhere else, set INSTALL_DIR:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yoanbernabeu/grepai/main/install.sh | INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/.local/bin" sh

You can also download an archive directly from GitHub Releases. Each release includes a checksums.txt file.

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yoanbernabeu/grepai/main/install.ps1 | iex

The script installs grepai.exe to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\grepai and adds that folder to your user PATH. It installs the amd64 build. On Windows ARM, download the windows_arm64 archive from GitHub Releases.

Nix

The repository provides a Nix flake:

# Run without installing
nix run github:yoanbernabeu/grepai -- version

# Install into your profile
nix profile install github:yoanbernabeu/grepai

Install from Source

Requires Go 1.25.5 or later (see go.mod).

git clone https://github.com/yoanbernabeu/grepai.git
cd grepai
make build                         # creates ./bin/grepai
sudo mv ./bin/grepai /usr/local/bin/

Or install directly into your GOBIN with:

go install github.com/yoanbernabeu/grepai/cmd/grepai@latest

Source builds report a placeholder version: 0.1.0 with make build (override it with make build VERSION=x.y.z) and dev with go install.

Note: Release binaries are built without CGO. The experimental ast chunking strategy needs a build with the treesitter tag and CGO enabled: CGO_ENABLED=1 go build -tags treesitter ./cmd/grepai. See Chunking Strategy.

Ollama runs the embedding model locally. grepai uses nomic-embed-text by default.

# macOS
brew install ollama

# Linux
curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

# Start the server (skip if Ollama already runs as an app or service)
ollama serve

# In another terminal, download the default embedding model
ollama pull nomic-embed-text

grepai expects Ollama at http://localhost:11434. You can change this with embedder.endpoint in the configuration.

Verify Installation

grepai version
# grepai version 1.0.0

# If you use Ollama: check that the server answers and lists nomic-embed-text
curl http://localhost:11434/api/tags

Shell Completion

grepai can generate completion scripts for bash, zsh, fish and PowerShell. Completion covers commands, flags, and values such as providers, backends and workspace names.

# Zsh (add to ~/.zshrc)
eval "$(grepai completion zsh)"

# Bash on Linux
grepai completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/grepai

# Bash on macOS (requires bash-completion@2)
grepai completion bash > $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion.d/grepai

# Fish
grepai completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/grepai.fish
# PowerShell
grepai completion powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression

Run grepai completion --help for more options, such as an Oh My Zsh plugin. See also grepai completion.

Updating

If you installed with Homebrew:

brew upgrade grepai

If you installed with the shell script, the PowerShell script or a downloaded archive:

grepai update --check   # only check whether a newer version exists
grepai update           # download and install the latest version
grepai update --force   # reinstall even if you are already up to date

grepai update downloads the release archive for your platform from GitHub, verifies it against checksums.txt, and replaces the current binary. Restart any running grepai watch afterwards.

If you installed with Nix or from source, update the same way you installed.

Next Steps