chalie
Local personal AI companion with persistent memory
TLDR
SYNOPSIS
chalie [--port=N] [--host=H] [command]
DESCRIPTION
chalie is an open-source personal AI that runs on your machine. It keeps working in the background with persistent memory (episodes, concepts, and abstractions with decay), goal tracking, and proactive research. Actions go through an Allow / Ask / Deny policy so it does not act without consent.It is a single Python process (Flask + WebSocket) with SQLite storage (including vector and FTS search). Optional local voice uses ONNX STT/TTS. Features include vision (photos/screenshots), a driven browser, MCP clients and tools, email/calendar/contacts (IMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV), a natural-language scheduler, guarded shell and sandboxed code, and encrypted whole-instance backup. Models can be cloud providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini) or local via ollama. Default web UI: http://localhost:31025.
PARAMETERS
start
Start the daemon in the background (default if no command is given). Writes PID to ~/.chalie/chalie.pid and logs to ~/.chalie/chalie.log.stop
Stop a running instance and remove the PID file.restart
Stop, then start again with the same port/host options.update
Stop, re-run the installer for the latest release, then start again.status
Print whether Chalie is running and its PID.logs
Follow ~/.chalie/chalie.log when stdout is a terminal; otherwise print the last 50 lines.version, -V, --version
Print the installed version.--port=N, --port N
Listen port (default: 31025).--host=H, --host H
Bind address (default: 0.0.0.0). Use 127.0.0.1 to keep the UI local-only.
CONFIGURATION
~/.chalie/
Install home: virtualenv (venv/), app source (app/), PID and log files.~/.chalie/app/data/
Persistent instance data (SQLite and related state). Not overwritten by upgrades.CHALIE_HOME
Override the install home directory (default $HOME/.chalie).CHALIE_VENV
Path to the Python virtualenv used by run.sh (set by the installer CLI).First boot opens an onboarding wizard to choose a model provider. Fully local setup: install ollama and pull a supported model, then point Chalie at it during setup.
CAVEATS
Requires Python 3.11+. Beta software: sharp edges are expected. First start may download a large embedding model (~400 MB). Binding to 0.0.0.0 exposes the UI on the network — restrict with --host=127.0.0.1 or a firewall if the machine is shared. Ensure ~/.local/bin is on PATH so the chalie wrapper is found after install.
HISTORY
Chalie is an open-source personal AI companion focused on long-running local agency and restrained action policies rather than single-session chat. It ships under the Apache 2.0 license.
