Ask HN: AI CLI agents for non-conding tasks

2 points by Adrig 12 hours ago

I started using AI CLIs with Obsidian for document writing, reviews, research, etc.

I use OpenCode to try out various models, but haven't really landed on one specific one. These days, I use Gemini even tho I never know if it'll get stuck or not.

I'm curious if others have experience with CLI / agentic workflows for non-coding work. I'd love to hear about your experience with the various models and how you use them.

So far, my + and - are:

    +: Finally, control over the AI output, no more copy-pasting everything, contextualize every new chat. It's also way better to organize a task for the AI in Obsydian than in a chat interface.

    +: Agentic workflow is interesting, I can throw a task, go back to my work and review later

    +: API means you can keep your costs low if you're not a power user, it also means you can easily switch providers for different tasks

    +: I feel like a hacker

    -: It gets pretty complex when you want to expand the AI capabilities. Setting up RAG, MCP looks a bit daunting. You can create "agents," but they are basically a system prompt. OpenAI custom GPTs are so much easier to set up. Maybe, given the current size of the context window, I'm overthinking it.

    -: Initial setup was also not the smoothest, but I'm rusty in this area and Windows is not helping
toomuchtodo 12 hours ago

I built an agent for Muckrock that I use to rapidly build FOIA requests. Whenever I think “I wish I had an exuberant intern that requires lots of supervision for this work,” I reach for an agent.