NOVA

An AI assistant that lives in your terminal.

NOVA understands developer tasks in plain English — scaffolding projects, installing packages, creating directories, and running scripts — and executes them directly in your shell.

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Install

# Clone or download the repo
cd nova

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Link globally so `nova` works anywhere
npm link

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Start

nova

On first run, NOVA will ask for your Anthropic/GenAI API key and save it to ~/.nova/config.json. You won't be asked again.

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Example session

$ nova

┌  NOVA Local terminal assistant for vikash
│
◆  What would you like Nova to do?
│  create a new react app called my-portfolio using vite
│
◇  Thinking complete (1.8s).
│
●  Scaffolding a Vite React project called my-portfolio
│
◇  $ npx create-vite@latest my-portfolio --template react
   [npx output...]
│
◇  $ npm install
   [npm output...]
│
◆  Finished in 18.4 seconds.
│
◇  What would you like Nova to do?

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Supported task categories

Category	Example
directory_creation	"create a folder called backend"
npx_command	"scaffold a next.js app called blog"
package_install	"install axios and react-query"
script_execution	"run the dev server"
mixed	"create a vite project and add tailwind"

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Config

Stored at ~/.nova/config.json:

{
  "apiKey": "sk-ant-..."
}

To reset and re-enter your API key:

rm ~/.nova/config.json
nova

To launch NOVA's development environment:

nova --dev

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Commands

Terminal input	Effect
exit / quit / bye	Quit NOVA
Ctrl+C	Graceful exit

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Tech

• Node.js 18+ (ESM)
• Clack — prompts, spinners, and terminal UI
• Anthropic SDK — task evaluation
• Google GenAI — task evaluation
• chalk — terminal styling
• child_process.spawn — shell command execution