otter-assistant is the chat window for otter-assist. The daemon owns transport and tools. This app owns threads, permissions, Markdown, and code highlighting.
Install with
pikman install otter-shell-extras. That pulls in otter-assist, otter-assistant, and otter-assist-data along with the speech tools.Launch
otter-assist first (or autostart it). No daemon, no replies.
Chat
Type in the prompt box and press Enter. The status line shows tool progress, then tokens per second and time to first token when the reply finishes. Successful exchanges save as encrypted thread files under$XDG_DATA_HOME/otter-shell/assistant/threads/. assistant/current.id picks the active thread. An old assistant/current.thread file migrates into the default thread on first use.
Tool permissions
Web Search and Desktop Search ask before they run:
The request sends one-shot approval to
otter-assist. Other clients stay gated unless their own config allows the tool.
Rendering
Replies render as Markdown: headings, tables, task lists, remote and local images (cached by Otter), and fenced code blocks highlighted withzhl.
Configuration
Client settings live in~/.config/otter-shell/otter-assistant.conf:
backend, tools, idle unload) live in otter-assist.conf. Edit those under Assist in otter-settings, or see otter-assist.
Related
- otter-assist: local inference daemon and
otter-assistctl - otter-search: desktop search used by the assistant tool
- Installation: what
otter-shell-extrasincludes