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Chat with Claude through your own installed Claude CLI

Source: R/api_claude_cli.R
claude_cli_chat.Rd

claude_cli() is the odd one out among tidyllm's providers: it sends nothing over the network itself. It runs the claude command line tool that is already installed and signed in on your machine, and reads its JSON output back. There is no API key to set, and usage counts against whatever plan the CLI is logged in to rather than against an Anthropic API key.

Usage

claude_cli_chat(
  .llm,
  .model = NULL,
  .system_prompt_mode = "append",
  .json_schema = NULL,
  .cli_tools = FALSE,
  .stateful = FALSE,
  .session_id = NULL,
  .max_budget_usd = NULL,
  .append_system_prompt = NULL,
  .binary = "claude",
  .verbose = FALSE,
  .timeout = 300,
  .stream = FALSE,
  .dry_run = FALSE
)

Arguments

.llm

An LLMMessage object.

.model

Character; the model the CLI should use, for example "claude-sonnet-5-5" or "claude-haiku-4-5-20251001". Default NULL uses whatever the CLI is configured to use.

.system_prompt_mode

One of "append" or "ignore". With "append" the message's system prompt is added to the CLI's own system prompt, which is the only way the CLI accepts one. With "ignore" it is dropped.

.json_schema

A schema to enforce an output structure; a list, or an ellmer type object. Passed to the CLI's own --json-schema flag.

.cli_tools

Controls the CLI's built-in tools. FALSE, the default, disables all of them, so the call behaves like an ordinary completion. A character vector allows exactly those tools, for example c("Read", "WebSearch"). TRUE hands over to the CLI's own configuration, which on a default install includes Bash, Write and Edit.

.stateful

Logical; if TRUE the CLI keeps the conversation on its side. The first call sends only the newest user message and records the session id in the metadata; later calls resume that session instead of replaying the history. Default FALSE sends the whole conversation every time, the way every other tidyllm provider does.

.session_id

Character; resume this CLI session explicitly. Normally left NULL, because .stateful = TRUE picks the id up from the message history on its own.

.max_budget_usd

Numeric; hand the CLI a spending ceiling for this call.

.append_system_prompt

Character; extra system prompt text, added after the message's own system prompt.

.binary

Character; the command to run, or a full path to it. Defaults to "claude", which is looked for on the PATH and then in the places the installers use. A GUI R session often has a shorter PATH than your terminal, so if the CLI is somewhere unusual, set it once with options(tidyllm_claude_cli_path = "/path/to/claude") in your .Rprofile, or the TIDYLLM_CLAUDE_CLI environment variable, rather than passing it at every call.

.verbose

Logical; if TRUE, prints rate limit information after the response.

.timeout

Integer; seconds to wait. On a stream this is the idle deadline between events rather than a total, so a long answer is not cut off for being long.

.stream

Logical; if TRUE, prints the reply as it arrives.

.dry_run

Logical; if TRUE, returns the command that would be run instead of running it.

Value

A new LLMMessage object containing the original messages plus the CLI's response.

Details

claude_cli() finds the CLI on the PATH, and, failing that, in the directories the installers write to. RStudio and other GUI front ends do not inherit the PATH from your shell profile, so the CLI can be perfectly installed and still invisible to Sys.which(); the fallback is what covers that. To point at it explicitly, set options(tidyllm_claude_cli_path = "/path/to/claude").

The CLI is an agent, not a plain completion endpoint. By default it can read files, edit them and run shell commands. tidyllm turns all of that off unless you ask for it, because a call to chat() that quietly edits files in the working directory is not what the rest of this package does. Pass .cli_tools to allow specific tools back.

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
llm_message("What is R's S7 class system?") |>
  chat(claude_cli())

# Let the CLI read files, but not write or run anything
llm_message("Summarise the DESCRIPTION file in this folder.") |>
  chat(claude_cli(.cli_tools = c("Read", "Glob")))

# Keep the conversation on the CLI's side
first  <- llm_message("Start a review of my package.") |>
  chat(claude_cli(.stateful = TRUE))
second <- first |>
  llm_message("Now look at the tests.") |>
  chat(claude_cli(.stateful = TRUE))
} # }