Ask a question

Ask sends a typed or spoken question to Claude Code or Codex and prints the reply in your terminal. It does not read replies aloud.

Your question and project content read by the agent may go to cloud services. Spoken questions are transcribed locally first. The agent keeps its own conversation records. Read Privacy before using private project content.

Before you start

Complete setup, then install and sign in to the claude or codex command you selected. Follow the Claude Code quickstart or Codex CLI setup, then check that the command works with your account. Keep Aria’s background service running.

If you installed the agent after Aria setup, refresh the service registration so it can find the command.

Try a typed question

Open a terminal in a project you are comfortable sharing, then run:

aria ask \
  --project "$PWD" \
  "What does this project do?"

Wait for the reply. --project tells the agent which folder to read. Aria uses read-only agent settings; this limits changes to files but does not prevent the agent from reading them or sending content to its service.

To continue the conversation, ask again from the same folder with the same agent:

aria ask \
  --project "$PWD" \
  "Where should I start reading?"

Speak a question

Once the typed question works, omit its text:

aria ask \
  --project "$PWD"

Speak, then pause. With the default stop setting, silence ends the recording. The answer appears in the terminal. If a spoken question fails, try the typed example again to distinguish an agent problem from a recording problem.

Cancel

Press Esc when the terminal shows its cancel prompt to cancel the question.

Start fresh

Repeated questions continue the conversation for that folder and agent. Use --new to start another:

aria ask \
  --project "$PWD" \
  --new \
  "Explain the tests."

Starting fresh does not delete the agent’s earlier conversation records. Use --session with a name if you want separate conversations in one folder. For a different agent on one request, add --agent codex or --agent claude-code.

If Ask cannot start its agent, check Troubleshooting. For names in spoken questions, Project vocabulary explains how to prepare the folder’s spellings.