Overview

qialike is a coding-agent terminal TUI built on DeepSeek Harness, for Linux, macOS and Windows.

qialike is a coding-agent terminal TUI built on DeepSeek Harness:
platforms Linux, macOS and Windows; full-screen, session resume, sandboxed execution, a single-file binary, any model, and a plugin-based design.

cd ~/my-project
qialike

What it does

Start it in a project directory: describe what you want in plain language, and it reads code, edits files and runs commands while streaming every step to the same screen.
Pick up where you left off: sessions persist automatically — qialike resume continues the most recent session in the current directory, and /sessions lists history with search, rename, pin and delete.
Bring your own model: there is no default provider; ＋ Add provider in /models lists the major Chinese providers, including the official DeepSeek endpoint (set DEEPSEEK_API_KEY and you are set) — Qwen, GLM, Kimi, MiniMax, StepFun, Volcano Engine (Doubao), Xiaomi MiMo, Ant Ling, plus aggregation gateways such as SiliconFlow and Qiniu. Pick one and it is live (mostly OpenAI-compatible); Ctrl+T cycles reasoning effort.
Everything lives under /: typing / opens the completion panel — /models, /sessions, /theme, /export, /plan, /goal, /compact, /sidebar and more. ↑/↓ to move, Enter to run.
Or open it in a browser: qialike web starts the Web UI that ships with DeepSeek Harness — it forwards the whole call to an installed dsh CLI (dsh web, the official alias for dsh --profile web). That UI is harness-provided; qialike does not reimplement it. The dsh prerequisite is covered in Requirements at a glance. Both ends share one session store: in the same workspace, a session started in the browser can be continued with qialike resume, and qialike’s sessions appear in the browser (attached to the matching workspace so they group correctly).
Acts within limits: bash / pwsh run inside an OS-level sandbox; .env, .git internals and credential files are always refused to read; where the executor offers no kernel confinement, every shell call is approved individually. See Permissions.
Runs out of the box: one single-file executable each for Linux, macOS and Windows, with neither node_modules nor a harness checkout at runtime (the Windows npm channel needs Node.js to install only).
Extend without recompiling: drop in a skills directory or attach an MCP server — no build, no install.

Where to go next

I want to…	Go to
Install qialike	Install
Get through a first session	Quickstart
Look up CLI flags and slash commands	Commands
Upgrade to a new version	Updates
Learn the keys	Keybinds
Choose or connect a model	Models
Understand the sandbox and permissions	Permissions
Change configuration and environment variables	Config
Troubleshoot a problem	Troubleshooting
Use it on Windows / WSL	Windows and WSL

Requirements at a glance

Platforms: Linux (including WSL), macOS and Windows, x64 and arm64 each — six published targets. On Windows it installs as the native qialike.exe and runs in the Windows Terminal app — no WSL required (WSL works too); a native Windows environment has no bash, so installing there means npm i -g @qialike/cli (Node.js ≥ 18) or unpacking the zip by hand. See Windows and WSL.
Terminal: a real TTY — the full-screen surface, streaming output and mouse interaction all assume an interactive terminal. A minimum of 14 rows; at ≥110 columns the right-hand Steps panel appears automatically.
Memory: ≥1 GB of RAM is recommended; 512 MB works but is tight, and below 512 MB is unsupported.
Disk: the download archive is roughly 45–58 MB (varies by platform) and unpacks to a single file of about 96 MB.
Model credential: a key for any provider you configure — for the official DeepSeek endpoint that is DEEPSEEK_API_KEY, via the environment, ~/.dsh settings, or .env. Keys are issued by each provider; qialike neither requests one for you nor bundles any.
Sandbox: all three platforms get OS-level confinement out of the box — Linux prefers the host’s bubblewrap and falls back to qialike’s own Landlock (requires the LSM enabled in the kernel, ≥5.13), macOS uses the system Seatbelt, and Windows uses the harness’s ACL restricted-token runner. Where a mode cannot be enforced, bash under workspace-write / read-only fails closed with SANDBOX_UNAVAILABLE. See Permissions.

License and upstream relationship

qialike is released under the MIT License. The version you run is whatever you installed — qialike --version reports it.
qialike is built on DeepSeek Harness and is an independent community project: it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorised by DeepSeek. “DeepSeek Harness” is a trademark of the DeepSeek company, referenced here only to describe the technical origin of and relationship to the upstream software.
The harness core is not modified: this project contributes a bundle and a Bun-compiled single-file launcher. Plugin extension points, session persistence, compaction and plan/goal all come from upstream.
The name and wordmark are outside the license grant: the rights MIT grants — to use, modify and redistribute — cover the software itself, not the qialike name or its wordmark. They identify this project only.