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Bica

Install

Bica is one file, bica, with everything it needs inside. You download it from GitHub and put it on your PATH. It doesn’t need Bun, Node, or Docker.

You need macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel) or Linux (x64 or arm64), git, and a way to pay for a model: a Claude or ChatGPT plan, or an API key. There is no Windows build.

  1. Download bica into ~/.local/bin:

    Terminal window
    mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
    url=https://github.com/cyrillbrito/bica/releases/latest/download
    curl -fsSL $url/bica-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar -xz -C ~/.local/bin

    On an Intel Mac, use bica-darwin-x64.tar.gz.

  2. Put ~/.local/bin on your PATH, if it isn’t already:

    Terminal window
    echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
    source ~/.zshrc

  3. Check that it runs:

    Terminal window
    bica --version

    It prints the version number, such as 0.1.0.

Next, start it and send a first prompt.

If the check fails

Section titled “If the check fails”

If the shell says command not found, the folder isn’t on your PATH yet. Open a new terminal, or run the source line from step 2 again.

If macOS says bica cannot be opened, the file came from a browser download. macOS blocks those because Bica isn’t notarized by Apple, while the curl download above isn’t affected. Remove the block with:

Terminal window
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~/.local/bin/bica

Check the download

Section titled “Check the download”

Each release has a SHA256SUMS file. Put it in the same folder as the .tar.gz you downloaded and run shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing on macOS, or sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing on Linux. It prints OK next to your file’s name when the file is intact.

Build it yourself

Section titled “Build it yourself”

With Bun 1.4.3 or newer, you can build the same binary from the repo:

Terminal window
git clone https://github.com/cyrillbrito/bica.git
cd bica
bun install
bun run build:bica
cp dist/bica/bica ~/.local/bin/

A build of your own prints 0.0.0-dev for bica --version.

Optional extras

Section titled “Optional extras”

You don’t need any of these to start. Google Chrome lets bica open Bica in its own app window. The GitHub CLI (gh), signed in, shows each branch’s pull request in the sidebar. Tailscale lets you use Bica from your phone.