Files

Evan Reichard 74b8d43032 refactor!: move LLM configuration from in-app settings to CLI/env vars

- Remove `api_endpoint` from Settings model and settings UI
- Add `--llm-endpoint` / `AETHERA_LLM_ENDPOINT` and `--llm-key` /
  `AETHERA_LLM_KEY` CLI flags (endpoint is required)
- Update client constructor to accept API key parameter
- Update tests and documentation to reflect new configuration approach

BREAKING CHANGE: LLM endpoint and key must now be provided via
`AETHERA_LLM_ENDPOINT` and `AETHERA_LLM_KEY` environment variables or
CLI flags instead of the Settings page.

2026-05-01 23:30:34 -04:00

3.4 KiB

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Aethera

A web dashboard for AI-powered conversations and image generation, backed by any OpenAI-compatible API.

Features

Chat Interface — streaming responses with Markdown rendering and syntax highlighting
Thinking Support — displays model reasoning/thinking content when available
Multiple Conversations — switch between threads with auto-generated titles
Image Generation & Editing — create and edit images with customizable prompts, masks, and seeds
Token Statistics — real-time prompt/generation throughput and timing metrics
Theme Support — light and dark mode toggle
Structured Output — JSON schema-based structured responses from models
Embedded Frontend — single binary deployment with assets compiled in

Quick Start

Prerequisites

Go 1.25.5+
Bun
An OpenAI-compatible API endpoint

Using Make

make all              # Build frontend + backend
./backend/dist/aethera

Using Docker

make docker
docker run -p 8080:8080 \
  -e AETHERA_LLM_ENDPOINT=https://api.example.com/v1 \
  -e AETHERA_LLM_KEY=your-key \
  -v aethera-data:/app/data aethera

Manual Build

# Frontend
cd frontend && bun install && bun run build && cd ..

# Copy assets to backend
mkdir -p backend/web/static
cp -R frontend/public/. backend/web/static/

# Backend
cd backend && go build -o ./dist/aethera ./cmd
./dist/aethera

Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

Configuration

Configuration is available via CLI flags and environment variables (prefixed AETHERA_):

Flag	Env Var	Default	Description
`--llm-endpoint`	`AETHERA_LLM_ENDPOINT`	(required)	OpenAI-compatible API endpoint URL
`--llm-key`	`AETHERA_LLM_KEY`		API key for authentication
`--data-dir`	`AETHERA_DATA_DIR`	`./data`	Directory for chats, settings, and images
`--static-dir`	`AETHERA_STATIC_DIR`	(embedded)	Serve frontend from disk (for development)
`--listen`	`AETHERA_LISTEN`	`localhost`	Listen address
`--port`	`AETHERA_PORT`	`8080`	Listen port

Example:

AETHERA_LLM_ENDPOINT=https://api.example.com/v1 AETHERA_LLM_KEY=your-key ./backend/dist/aethera

Development

A Nix flake is provided for the development environment:

nix develop   # or use direnv with .envrc

This provides Go, Bun, gopls, typescript-language-server, golangci-lint, and watchman.

For hot-reload development:

make dev

This starts the Go backend (serving frontend from disk) and the frontend in watch mode concurrently.

Getting Started

Configure Your API — set AETHERA_LLM_ENDPOINT and optionally AETHERA_LLM_KEY environment variables
Start the Server — run the binary and navigate to http://localhost:8080
Configure Model Selectors — navigate to Settings to configure model selectors for chat and image generation

Supported AI Services

Aethera works with any OpenAI-compatible API, including:

OpenAI
Local LLMs (Ollama, llama.cpp, LocalAI, etc.)
Any other compatible service

Llama.cpp-specific features like per-token timings are automatically detected.

License

See LICENSE file for details.

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