ZIZOU docs

Everything you need to run, extend, and understand Zizou — the AI coding agent that lives in your terminal.

Zizou comes with several built-in slash commands you can use in the chat bar to configure your agent on the fly:

• /plan — Switch to Plan Mode (clarify → plan → confirm → execute → verify).
• /build — Switch to Build Mode (fast single-step execution).
• /permissions — View active session-cached file/command permissions or clear them (/permissions clear).
• /context <light|default|max> — Set context mode budget.
• /reasoning <low|medium|high> — Set reasoning level & inference parameters.
• /expert — Configure preset models, temperature, and token parameters.
• /keys — Opens an interactive setup screen allowing you to switch AI providers and update API keys.
• /models — Select or override active models for the selected provider.
• /add <filepath> — Pin a file's contents permanently to context.
• /checkpoint — Manage checkpoints (list, diff, restore, branch, revert).
• /undo — Undo the last step's file changes.
• /redo — Redo the last undone step.
• /export — Export conversation transcript to markdown file.
• /clear — Reset conversation history & session permissions.

New Features

Step-Level Undo/Redo

Zizou now supports step-level undo and redo operations, allowing you to revert file changes at the granularity of individual execution steps:

• /undo — Reverts the file changes from the last executed step. If a step created a file, /undo deletes it. If a step deleted a file, /undo restores it.
• /redo — Re-applies changes that were previously undone.
• Undo/redo state is persisted in .zizou/ and cleared when switching sessions.
• Multiple sequential /undo calls walk back through multiple steps.

@ File Search

Type @ in the chat input to trigger fuzzy file search:

• Press @ and start typing to filter project files.
• Use arrow keys to navigate through matches.
• Press Enter to insert the selected file path into your prompt.
• Supports multiple @ references in a single prompt.
• Respects .gitignore patterns (excludes node_modules, .git, etc.).
• File index is cached and debounced for performance on large projects.

Model-Tier Indicators

Zizou now displays which model tier handled each step:

• [local] — Green tag for local execution (Ollama).
• [hosted] — Yellow tag for cloud-based providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, Groq, Google, etc.).
• Tags appear in step progress and verification displays.

Cost Tracking

Running cost is displayed in the status bar and updated after each model call:

• Shows accumulated cost in USD based on actual token usage from the AI SDK.
• Uses per-model rate tables for accurate calculation.
• Unknown models are excluded from the total (shown as "unpriced" in logs).
• Rates are easily updatable in a single configuration file.

ZIZOU.md Project Conventions

You can now create a ZIZOU.md file at your project root to declare project-specific conventions:

• Content is automatically injected into the planner's context with clear delimiters.
• Use this to declare scope guardrails, path conventions, or coding standards.
• Example: "Never touch src/legacy/ directory without explicit permission."
• Absence of ZIZOU.md is a silent no-op (no errors or warnings).

LLM Compatibility

Zizou (Phase 1) is built on top of the Vercel AI SDK, meaning it is provider-agnostic. Out of the box, it supports:

• Anthropic — High-quality reasoning (Claude 3.5 Sonnet). Requires an API key.
• OpenAI — GPT-4o capabilities. Requires an API key.
• Groq — Extremely fast inference for Llama 3 models. Requires an API key.
• Google — Gemini capabilities. Requires an API key.
• OpenRouter — Access a massive ecosystem of models through a single API key.
• Ollama — 100% free, local execution. Ollama exposes an OpenAI-compatible API on http://localhost:11434/v1. Run llama3 locally with no API key.

To connect to any of these, run /keys inside the CLI, or export an environment variable: