LazyLlama

✨ Why LazyLlama?

Built with performance and user experience in mind

⚡

Real-time Streaming

Responses are generated live, providing immediate feedback without waiting for complete generation.

📝

GitHub-Flavored Markdown

Feature-complete markdown rendering with bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code, headers (all 6 levels), ordered/unordered lists, task lists (☐/☑), blockquotes, horizontal rules, and clickable links.

🎨

Syntax Highlighting

Professional-grade code highlighting for 100+ languages (Rust, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, C++, Java, and more) with 10 customizable themes optimized for both dark and light terminal backgrounds.

🖱️

Smart Scrolling

Automatic following of AI output with manual scroll lock (🔒) for reading previous messages undisturbed.

🔄

Model Management

Easily switch between installed Ollama models using arrow keys with separate input/output buffers per model.

💾

Smart Buffer Management

Each LLM maintains its own chat history, input text, and scroll position for seamless multi-model workflows.

📝

Automatic Logging

Every chat session is automatically saved as text files with both combined and per-model histories.

⚙️

Customizable Settings

Persistent configuration with in-app settings dialog (Ctrl+O). Choose from 10 syntax highlighting themes, with more settings coming soon. Preferences are saved automatically.

⌨️

Emacs-inspired Controls

Familiar keyboard shortcuts for efficient navigation and control, designed for power users.

🦀

Built with Rust

Ultra-low latency and minimal resource footprint using Rust and the Ratatui terminal framework.

⚡ Blazing Fast Performance

Ultra-low latency operations well within 60 FPS frame budget (< 16ms)

LazyLlama is built with performance as a top priority. All operations complete in microseconds or nanoseconds, ensuring a smooth and responsive user experience even with large conversation histories.

🔤 String Operations

Character Insertion 384 ns ⚡⚡

Unicode Handling (🦀) 163 ns ⚡⚡

Pattern Search 7.55 µs ⚡

📝 Text Processing

History Parsing 2.11 µs ⚡

Line Iteration 7.23 µs ⚡

Character Counting 206 ns ⚡⚡

🎯 Cursor Operations

Index Conversion 1 ns ⚡⚡⚡

Word Boundary 2.81 µs ⚡

🌍 Real-World Usage

100KB History 66.2 µs ✅

Model Switching 13.0 µs ✅

HashMap Lookups 6.97 µs ⚡

Performance Legend

⚡⚡⚡ Extreme (< 10 ns)

⚡⚡ Ultra-fast (< 1 µs)

⚡ Fast (< 10 µs)

✅ Good (< 100 µs)

Note: All benchmarks are measured on optimized release builds. Unicode operations are actually faster than ASCII due to efficient UTF-8 handling in Rust. Run cargo test --release --benches to execute the full benchmark suite yourself.

Last measured: 2 March 2026 · Release build · cargo test --release --benches

🚀 Quick Start

Get up and running in minutes

Prerequisites

Make sure you have Rust and Ollama installed and running.

Install LazyLlama

# From crates.io (recommended)
cargo install lazyllama

# Or build from source
git clone https://github.com/Pommersche92/lazyllama.git
cd lazyllama
cargo install --path .

Run LazyLlama

lazyllama

That's it! Start chatting with your AI models right in your terminal.

⌨️ Keyboard Controls

Designed for efficiency and productivity

Basic Controls

Enter Send message / Re-activate Autoscroll

Shift + Enter Insert newline (multiline input)

Ctrl + Q Quit application safely

Ctrl + O Open settings dialog (theme selection)

Ctrl + C Clear chat history

Ctrl + S Manually toggle Autoscroll

Clipboard Operations

Ctrl + Shift + C Copy selected text to clipboard

Ctrl + Shift + V Paste text from clipboard

Model & Navigation

Ctrl + ↑ / ↓ Switch between AI Models (loads separate buffers per model)

↑ / ↓ Move cursor up/down between lines in multiline input

PgUp / PgDn Scroll history (activates Manual Mode)

← / → Move cursor left/right in the input field

Text Selection

Shift + ← / → Select text character-wise

Shift + Home / End Select text to start/end of line

Ctrl + Shift + ← / → Select text word-wise

Advanced Editing

Home / End Jump to start/end of the input line

Ctrl + ← / → Move cursor word-wise

Backspace Delete character before the cursor

Delete Delete character after the cursor

Ctrl + Backspace Delete previous word

Ctrl + Delete Delete next word