QuailThe quail command
Quail's menu, in your terminal. It asks the running app to act, so the menu and the terminal always agree.
Homebrew installs it. From the DMG, use General → Command line → Install, which links ~/.local/bin/quail; add ~/.local/bin to your PATH if your shell can't find it. quail start opens Quail if it isn't running.
The server
quail status | Whether the server is running, and on what. |
quail start · stop · restart | Start, stop or restart it. Restart applies model and context changes. |
quail service enable|disable|status | Keep it always on: open Quail at login and start the server automatically. |
quail logs [-n 50] [-f] | Recent server and Quail logs; -f keeps printing. |
quail config [--show-key] | Where things are: the address, API key, model store, logs and settings. |
Models
quail list | Installed models. |
quail ps | Models loaded in memory. |
quail pull <model>[:quant] | Download a catalog model or any Hugging Face GGUF repo: qwen3-8b, qwen3-8b:Q8_0, unsloth/gemma-4-12b-it-GGUF:Q5_K_M. Ctrl-C cancels; running it again resumes. |
quail pull --list | The catalog: what's recommended for this Mac, and what's installed. |
quail rm <model> | Delete a model. |
quail default [<model>|--clear] | Show or set the model that loads when the server starts. |
quail ctx <model> [32k|auto] | Show a model's context sizes and how each fits, or set one. |
Using models
quail chat [model] [prompt] | Chat in the terminal. With a prompt (or piped input) it answers once. /clear forgets the conversation, /bye exits. |
quail launch <tool> [-m model] [-- args] | Start claude, codex, opencode, qwen, aider or goose pointed at Quail, for that run only. |
quail bench [model] [--json] [--history] | Run the benchmark, or list saved results. |
Examples
quail pull qwen3-8b
quail default Qwen3-8B-Q4_K_M
quail ctx Qwen3-8B-Q4_K_M 32k && quail restart
quail chat why is the sky blue
{ echo "Summarise this change:"; git diff; } | quail chat
quail launch claudequail help <command> shows every option.