What Caro Does
Caro is an AI assistant for the terminal that actually understands your environment, validates commands before they run, and works without internet. Here's what that means for you.
Core Capabilities
Turn Plain English into Shell Commands
Describe what you want to do, get the exact command. No more Googling syntax.
find /var/log -name "*.log" -size +100Mlsof -i :8080tar -czvf folder.tar.gz ./folderCatch Dangerous Commands Before They Run
Caro validates every command against 52+ dangerous patterns. Works even when AI gets it wrong.
BLOCKED: System destruction pattern detectedWARNING: Dangerous permission change on system directoryBLOCKED: Disk wipe pattern detectedWork Completely Offline
Everything runs on your machine. No internet required after install. No data ever leaves your computer.
- Works on planes, in remote areas, during outages
- Works in air-gapped secure environments
- No API keys or cloud accounts needed
- Your commands stay private
Commands That Work on Any Platform
Mac and Linux use different command syntax. Caro knows the difference and generates the right command for your system.
| Task | macOS | Linux |
|---|---|---|
| Find recent files | find . -mtime -1h | find . -mmin -60 |
| Extended regex | sed -E '...' | sed -r '...' |
| Check ports | lsof -i -P | ss -tlnp |
Who Uses Caro
Real problems, real solutions
On-Call Engineers
Your 3 AM companionThe Problem
- Need to run diagnostic commands quickly during incidents
- Can't afford to make mistakes on production systems
- Too tired to remember exact syntax at 3 AM
How Caro Helps
- Generates commands instantly without searching
- Validates commands before they touch production
- Works even when the network is down
Security Engineers
AI that works in locked-down environmentsThe Problem
- Work in air-gapped environments with no internet
- Need to get new tools approved by security team
- Can't use cloud-based AI assistants
How Caro Helps
- Zero network calls - works completely offline
- Single file, open source, easy to audit
- No telemetry, no data collection
DevOps Engineers
Commands that work everywhereThe Problem
- Commands work on Mac but break on Linux servers
- Constant context-switching to look up syntax
- CI pipelines fail due to platform differences
How Caro Helps
- Detects your platform and generates the right syntax
- Knows BSD vs GNU differences
- POSIX mode for maximum compatibility
Team Leads
Safety rails for your teamThe Problem
- Junior devs running dangerous commands in production
- AI tools suggesting commands that cause outages
- Need visibility into what commands are being run
How Caro Helps
- Deploy custom safety patterns team-wide
- Pattern-based validation that can't hallucinate
- Audit logs for compliance
Developers
Learn while you workThe Problem
- Can't remember command flags
- Constantly Googling basic tasks
- Want to get better at the terminal
How Caro Helps
- Natural language to command translation
- Explanations of what commands do
- Safe environment to experiment
What Makes Caro Different
Safety That Actually Works
Other tools use AI to check if commands are safe. The problem? AI can hallucinate. Caro uses pattern matching - the same command always gets the same safety result. No surprises.
Actually Offline
Most "local" AI tools still phone home. Caro never makes network calls after install. Verify it yourself: run strace and see zero network syscalls.
Platform Aware
Caro knows you're on Mac and generates BSD-style commands. Tell it you're targeting Linux, and it switches to GNU syntax. Other tools just guess.
Built for Production
Startup in under 100ms. Command generation in under 2 seconds. No spinning up containers or waiting for cloud APIs.
Real Scenarios
See the difference in action
The 3 AM Incident
Scenario: You get paged. Production is down. You SSH into the server.
Frantically Google "check disk space linux" while your brain is foggy. Hope you get the flags right.
Type: caro "what's using disk space". Get: du -sh /* | sort -rh | head -10. Done.
The Cross-Platform Script
Scenario: You write a deployment script on your Mac. Push to CI. It fails on the Linux runner.
Debug for an hour. Realize find -mtime works differently. Look up the Linux version.
Use caro --target linux "find files from last hour". Get the right syntax the first time.
The AI Disaster
Scenario: Claude suggests rm -rf to clean up a directory. It hallucinates the path.
If you run it without checking, you delete the wrong thing. Hope you have backups.
Caro blocks it with a warning. You see the exact pattern that matched. Crisis averted.
The Secure Environment
Scenario: You work in a SCIF. No internet. Your colleagues use AI assistants. You don't.
Maintain printed cheat sheets. Fall behind on productivity.
Copy the binary via USB. Same AI assistance as everyone else, zero security risk.
Try It Now
Try it
caro "list all files larger than 10MB" Review & run
Caro shows you the command, explains any risks, and asks before running.
Technical Details
Supported Platforms
- macOS (Intel & Apple Silicon)
- Linux (x64 & ARM64)
- Windows (WSL)
Inference Backends
- Embedded (MLX for Apple Silicon)
- Embedded (CPU via Candle)
- Ollama (local)
- vLLM (self-hosted)
Safety Patterns
- 52+ dangerous command patterns
- 4 risk levels (Safe to Critical)
- Custom patterns via config
- Pattern-based, not AI-based
Performance
- <100ms startup time
- <2s inference (Apple Silicon)
- <50ms safety validation
- Single binary, no dependencies