DeepSeek Chat CLI

A fully‑featured command‑line client for interacting with the DeepSeek Chat API, offering a rich TUI experience, attachment support, and configurable state‑machine architecture.

Table of contents

• Features
• Architecture
• Installation
• Quick start
• Command‑line options
• In‑session slash commands
• Attachments
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Configuration file
• Troubleshooting
• Contributing
• License

Features

• Interactive REPL powered by prompt‑toolkit with undo/redo, multiline editing, and history search.
• Rich output via rich panels, tables, and colourised syntax highlighting.
• Streaming responses with separate “Reasoning Chain” and assistant output, including <think> tag handling.
• File attachments – images, text, and Office/PDF docs up to 20 MB each, automatically embedded in the API call.
• Slash‑command palette (/clear, /save, /load, /attach, /detach, /files, /help).
• Keyboard shortcuts for power‑users (Ctrl+D to send, Ctrl+Z/Y undo/redo, etc.).
• Persistent config saved to ~/.deepseek_config; includes API key, proxy, model, temperature.
• State‑machine core for clean transitions between IDLE → WAITING_FOR_USER → PROCESSING → RESPONDING → ERROR.
• Proxy & timeout support with optional SOCKS transport.
• Debug mode that prints the last request/response chunks.

Architecture

┌──────────────────┐       ┌─────────────────────────┐
│  ChatUI          │──────▶│  ChatStateMachine       │
└──────────────────┘       └─────────────────────────┘
        ▲                            │
        │                            ▼
┌──────────────────┐       ┌─────────────────────────┐
│  AttachmentMgr   │◀──────│  ChatModel (API client) │
└──────────────────┘       └─────────────────────────┘

DeepSeek Chat CLI follows a clean separation of concerns:

Layer	Responsibility
ChatUI	Terminal I/O and presentation
AttachmentManager	Validation & encoding of user‑supplied files
ChatModel	Networking – talking to DeepSeek REST endpoints
ChatStateMachine	Orchestrates conversation flow & error handling

Installation

# 1. Clone
git clone https://github.com/starfield17/DEEPSEEK_API_CLI.git
cd DEEPSEEK_API_CLI

# 2. Create Python ≥3.8 environment (recommended)
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

# 3. Install dependencies
bash install_requirement.sh

Requirements

• Python *3.8+
• openai
• rich, prompt‑toolkit, httpx, httpx‑socks, pygments, readline (Linux / macOS), and their transitive deps.

Quick start

1. Set your API key

   export DEEPSEEK_API_KEY="sk‑..."

   Or pass --api-key on the command line.

2. Run

   python deep_seek_api_rebuild.py

3. Chat – type a prompt and press Ctrl + D to send.

Example session

$ python deep_seek_api_rebuild.py
DeepSeek Chat CLI (Model: deepseek-chat)
>>> /attach diagram.png
Added: diagram.png (image/png, 42.0KB)
User: Explain this diagram please   Ctrl+D
Amadeus: …

Command‑line options

Flag	Description	Default
--api-key	DeepSeek secret key	–
--model	Model name	deepseek-chat
--proxy	SOCKS/HTTP proxy, e.g. socks5://127.0.0.1:7890	–
--base-url	Override API endpoint	https://api.deepseek.com/v1
--temperature	Sampling temperature	0.5
--debug	Verbose request/response logging	False
--system-prompt	Inline system prompt	see below
--system-prompt-file	Path to prompt text file	–
--save-config	Persist the above to ~/.deepseek_config	–

In‑session slash commands

Command	Purpose
/clear	Wipe conversation and attachments
/save [file]	Save chat history to JSON
/load [file]	Load chat history
/attach <path…>	Attach one or more files (supports glob)
/detach [index]	Remove attachment(s) – without index clears all
/files	List current attachments
/help	Show built‑in help

Attachments

• Images: jpg, jpeg, png, gif, webp, bmp
• Text: txt, md, json, csv, xml, yaml/yml
• Documents: pdf, doc(x), xls(x), ppt(x)
• Each file ≤ 20 MB
• Multiple attachments allowed; cleared automatically after the request.

Keyboard shortcuts

Keys	Action
Enter	New line
Ctrl+D	Send message
Ctrl+V	Paste clipboard
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y	Undo / Redo
↑ / ↓	Browse history

Configuration file

Running --save-config (or entering your key at first launch) creates ~/.deepseek_config with 0600 permissions:

{
  "api_key": "sk-***",
  "model": "deepseek-chat",
  "proxy": null,
  "temperature": 0.7
}

Edit this file or rerun the script with new flags to update.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
API key missing	Set DEEPSEEK_API_KEY or pass --api-key
Request timed out	Check network, proxy, or raise --timeout
Connection failed	Verify proxy string (socks5://host:port)
CLI freezes on Windows	Use WSL or ensure readline is installed

Run with --debug for verbose logs.

Contributing

PRs and issues are welcome! Please run ruff and pytest before submitting.