Installation

Installation

Requirements

Component	Minimum
Python	3.10 +
Terminal	256-color (true-color recommended for arena gradients)
Network	Reachable subnet to your model hosts

The runtime dependencies are slim — see requirements.txt:

rich>=13.7.0
httpx>=0.26.0
asyncio-throttle>=1.0.0
prompt-toolkit>=3.0.0

No compilers, no native extensions, no GPU drivers required on the client side.

---

Standard install

git clone https://github.com/mtecnic/model-chat-cli.git
cd model-chat-cli
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Verify:

python main.py

You should see a network scan progress bar, followed by the discovered-models table.

---

With the helper script

run.sh activates the venv and launches the app in one go:

./run.sh

Use this if you want a one-shortcut launch (e.g. terminal launcher, tmux pane, desktop entry).

---

Pipx / standalone

The repo isn't yet packaged for PyPI, but you can install from source into an isolated env:

pipx install --editable git+https://github.com/mtecnic/model-chat-cli.git

Then run with model-chat-cli (if a console_scripts entry is added later) or by invoking python -m main inside the pipx venv.

---

Where things live

Path	What it is
~/.model_chat_cache.json	Discovered servers / models cache
~/.model_chat_history/	Saved conversations (when storage/history.py is wired)
./logs/stress_test_*.log	Stress-test logs (per-run, INFO console / DEBUG file)
./arena_*.md	Exported arena tournaments
./chat__*.md	Exported chat sessions

Delete ~/.model_chat_cache.json to force a full rescan on next launch.

---

Upgrading

git pull
pip install -r requirements.txt --upgrade

Cache format is forward-compatible; if a future change breaks it, the app will detect the mismatch and rescan rather than crashing.

---

Uninstall

Nothing is installed system-wide. To fully remove:

rm -rf ~/model-chat-cli ~/.model_chat_cache.json ~/.model_chat_history