watn
Open-source command-line tool that turns a plain-English question into a working shell command, with streaming output and an optional confirm-before-running mode.
🔗 Visit watn
Description
Everyone who uses a terminal has, at some point, forgotten the exact flag combination for a command they've typed a hundred times before. watn lets you just describe what you want in plain English — "find all files bigger than 100MB modified this week" — and it writes the actual shell command for you.
watn is a free, open-source CLI tool (GPL-3.0) that converts natural-language questions into executable shell commands using AI, streaming the response as it's generated. It supports multiple model tiers (a small/fast option, a balanced default, and a reasoning-focused mode for trickier requests), works with any OpenAI-compatible API provider so you're not locked into one vendor, and offers an execute mode (`-x` flag) that runs the generated command after you confirm it rather than blindly. It ships shell completion for bash, fish, zsh, elvish, and PowerShell, a Ctrl-W shortcut for pulling it up directly from your terminal, and a verbose mode that shows its reasoning, not just the final command.
💬 Our review
The short version: watn is a lightweight, no-frills way to skip memorizing shell syntax, and being free, open-source, and provider-agnostic makes it an easy tool to try with zero commitment.
It sits in the same space as GitHub Copilot CLI and Warp's AI command feature, but both of those are tied to a specific paid product (Copilot subscription, Warp's terminal app) — watn is just a standalone binary that works with whatever OpenAI-compatible API you already have access to, which matters if you don't want another subscription just for command lookup. The confirm-before-execute flag is the right default for a tool that runs shell commands on your behalf, and the multiple model tiers let you trade speed for accuracy depending on how gnarly the request is. The tradeoff: you need your own API key/provider, so it's not literally free to run at scale (you're paying the model provider per query, just not watn itself), and as a young single-maintainer project it doesn't have the polish or safety guardrails of a backed product like Warp. Good pick if you already have API access and want a fast, honest CLI helper; less appealing if you want a zero-setup, all-in-one terminal replacement.
💰 Pricing
📊 Global score
🤖 AI-enriched data
Outil open source gratuit (licence GPL-3.0) ; nécessite votre propre clé API compatible OpenAI, facturée séparément par le fournisseur
Pros
Gratuit et open source (GPL-3.0)
Compatible avec n'importe quel fournisseur API type OpenAI
Mode confirmation avant exécution (-x)
Complétion shell pour bash, fish, zsh, elvish, PowerShell
Cons
Nécessite sa propre clé API, facturée à part par le fournisseur
Projet jeune, mainteneur unique, moins mature que les alternatives soutenues
Pas de garde-fous de sécurité avancés au-delà de la confirmation manuelle