whale

README

Whale

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Blazingly fast · ~98% prompt cache hit · Zero bloat

Whale — AI coding agent for DeepSeek, in any environment.
Long context, tools, and programmable workflows —
start in the terminal, scale to desktop and beyond.

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🚀 Quick Start

Any platform:

npm install -g @usewhale/whale

macOS:

brew install usewhale/tap/whale

Linux:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/usewhale/Whale/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

Windows PowerShell:

Requires Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 or later.

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/usewhale/Whale/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

Windows CMD:

powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/usewhale/Whale/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex"

# Set your DeepSeek API key
whale setup

# Launch the interactive TUI
whale

That's it. Type your question and Whale starts working — reading files, running commands, editing code, searching the web.

Need a different model provider, proxy, or custom config? See Configuration.

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✨ At a Glance

What	Why it matters
💰 ~98% prompt cache hit	Whale reuses cached context aggressively — most prompts hit cache, slashing costs to pennies per session. DeepSeek pricing × Whale caching = AI-assisted coding at scale.
🐋 DeepSeek-native	Built for DeepSeek's long context (1M tokens), tool calling, and cost efficiency — no generic multi-model wrapper
🔁 Dynamic Workflows	Write JavaScript scripts that orchestrate multiple agents — fan-out research, multi-perspective review, pipelines. Claude Code compatible.
🔌 MCP	Plug in 1,000+ MCP servers for extended tooling — file ops, shell, git, web, and more
🧩 Skills + Plugins	Install community skills (code review, git workflows, etc.) or write your own

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🔁 Dynamic Workflows

Whale's Dynamic Workflows let you script multi-agent orchestration in JavaScript:

// .whale/workflows/research.js
const results = await parallel([
  () => agent("Search for best practices in Go error handling"),
  () => agent("Find common Go error handling mistakes"),
]);
return agent("Synthesize both findings into a concise guide");

Fan-out research · Multi-perspective review · Pipeline processing · Adversarial validation

✅ Claude Code compatible — workflow scripts written for Claude Code work as-is in Whale.

⚠️ Disabled by default — run /config in the TUI and enable Dynamic workflows, or add [workflows] enabled = true to .whale/config.local.toml.

Learn more: Workflow Overview · Custom Workflow Guide

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🧰 MCP, Skills & Plugins

Extension	What it does	Get started
MCP Servers	Connect to 1,000+ tools (databases, APIs, browser automation)	docs/mcp.en.md
Skills	Load domain expertise — code review, git-worktree, and more	docs/skills.en.md
Subagents	Define focused child-agent roles such as reviewers or researchers	docs/agents.en.md
Plugins	Extend Whale's runtime with custom logic	docs/plugins.en.md
Hooks	Run scripts on lifecycle events	docs/hooks.en.md

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📸 How It Works

Whale currently offers three interfaces — with more environments on the way:

Interface	When to use
whale (TUI)	Interactive coding sessions — chat, review, iterate with full context
whale ask "..." (CLI)	One-shot questions, quick code reviews, single commands
whale --headless	CI/CD, automated PR reviews, scheduled tasks

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🎯 Non-goals

• Multi-model shell. Whale is DeepSeek-first — optimized for DeepSeek's caching, tools, and pricing.
• IDE replacement. Whale is not an IDE — it's an agent that meets you wherever you code: terminal, desktop, or CI.

📦 Project Status

Whale is in active development. Best suited for personal projects, experimental repositories, and workflows where changes can be reviewed and rolled back.

Disclaimer: This project is not affiliated with DeepSeek Inc. It is an independent open-source community project.

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🤝 Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for local development, testing, issues, and PRs.

Current direction and available tasks: ROADMAP.md.

Security issues: SECURITY.md.

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Star History

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🙏 Credits

Whale stands on the shoulders of giants:

• Charmbracelet — Bubble Tea, Lip Gloss, Glamour, and the entire TUI ecosystem
• fastschema/qjs — QuickJS Go bindings for workflow scripting
• spf13/cobra — CLI framework
• alecthomas/chroma — Syntax highlighting
• yuin/goldmark — Markdown parsing
• modelcontextprotocol/go-sdk — MCP protocol support
• tetratelabs/wazero — Pure-Go WebAssembly runtime

And the many open-source libraries we depend on — thank you.