pplx

README

pplx

It's an unofficial CLI program to query/chat with the perplexity API.

Installation

Option 1

• Download the latest release from the releases page.
• Install the binary in /usr/local/bin or any other directory in your PATH.

Option 2: With brew

brew tap sgaunet/homebrew-tools
brew install sgaunet/tools/pplx

Usage

Program to interact with the Perplexity API.

        You can use it to chat with the AI or to query it.

Usage:
  pplx [command]

Available Commands:
  chat        chat subcommand is an interactive chat with the Perplexity API
  help        Help about any command
  query       
  version     print version of pplx

Flags:
  -h, --help   help for pplx

Use "pplx [command] --help" for more information about a command.

Chat

Chat with the Perplexity API.

pplx chat

Query

Query the Perplexity API.

pplx query -p "what are the best citations of Jean Marc Jancovici ?" -s "you're a politician"

The above command will return in console a result that looks like:

Query Examples

Basic Queries

# Simple query
pplx query -p "What is the capital of France?"

# Query with system prompt
pplx query -p "Explain quantum computing" -s "You are a physics professor"

# Query with custom model
pplx query -p "Latest AI news" --model "llama-3.1-sonar-large-128k-online"

Advanced Search Options

# Search only from specific domains
pplx query -p "climate change research" --search-domains nature.com,science.org

# Get recent information only (last week)
pplx query -p "stock market updates" --search-recency week

# Location-based query
pplx query -p "weather forecast" --location-lat 48.8566 --location-lon 2.3522 --location-country FR

Response Enhancement

# Include images in the response
pplx query -p "Famous landmarks in Paris" --return-images

# Get related questions
pplx query -p "How to learn programming" --return-related

# Filter images by format and domain
pplx query -p "Nature photography" --return-images --image-formats jpg,png --image-domains unsplash.com,pexels.com

Generation Parameters

# Control response length
pplx query -p "Summarize War and Peace" --max-tokens 500

# Fine-tune creativity and randomness
pplx query -p "Write a haiku about coding" --temperature 0.8 --top-p 0.95

# Adjust frequency and presence penalties
pplx query -p "Explain machine learning concepts" --frequency-penalty 0.5 --presence-penalty 0.3

Combined Examples

# Technical research with specific sources and recent data
pplx query -p "Latest developments in quantum computing" \
  --search-domains arxiv.org,nature.com \
  --search-recency month \
  --return-related \
  --max-tokens 1000

# Local business search with images
pplx query -p "Best restaurants near me" \
  --location-lat 40.7128 \
  --location-lon -74.0060 \
  --location-country US \
  --return-images \
  --search-recency week

# Creative writing with custom parameters
pplx query -p "Write a short story about AI" \
  -s "You are a creative science fiction writer" \
  --temperature 0.9 \
  --top-k 50 \
  --max-tokens 2000

Available Options

Common Options (for both chat and query)

Option	Short	Type	Description
--model	-m	string	AI model to use
--frequency-penalty		float64	Penalize frequent tokens (0.0-2.0)
--max-tokens		int	Maximum tokens in response
--presence-penalty		float64	Penalize already present tokens (0.0-2.0)
--temperature		float64	Response randomness (0.0-2.0)
--top-k		int	Consider only top K tokens
--top-p		float64	Nucleus sampling threshold
--timeout		duration	HTTP request timeout
--search-domains		[]string	Filter search to specific domains
--search-recency		string	Filter by time: day, week, month, year
--location-lat		float64	User location latitude
--location-lon		float64	User location longitude
--location-country		string	User location country code
--return-images		bool	Include images in response
--return-related		bool	Include related questions
--stream		bool	Enable streaming responses
--image-domains		[]string	Filter images by domains
--image-formats		[]string	Filter images by formats

Query-specific Options

Option	Short	Type	Description
--user-prompt	-p	string	User question/prompt (required)
--sys-prompt	-s	string	System prompt to set AI behavior