shiv

An AI assistant that runs in your terminal, on the device.

Talk to a model, let it run commands, keep the conversation across sessions. Sign in to OpenRouter through the browser, or paste your own key for any other provider. Since 2.0 it can also build tweaks, end to end, without leaving the phone.

What it does

Reads and edits files, runs shell commands — shell commands and file writes always ask first. What counts as "ask every time" is set in /permissions.

Sessions are saved every turn. Resume the last one, pick an earlier one, or rewind the conversation to an earlier point.

Profiles keep several providers side by side, switchable without losing the conversation.

Tweak and reverse engineering tools — class and method lookup from the device's own dyld cache, a live class dump from a running app, reading what's on screen in a running app, FairPlay decryption on the phone, and an environment probe that runs each tool instead of looking for it. Since 2.5 these live in their own package, shivtools, installed with shiv from this repo — so any CLI can use them, not just shiv.

Screenshots

Providers

OpenRouter signs in through the browser — no key to copy — and reaches Claude, GPT, Gemini and Grok with one account.

Also built in: DeepSeek · OpenAI · Moonshot (Kimi) · xAI (Grok) · Qwen · Z.ai (GLM) · Groq · Mistral · Together AI · Ollama or llama.cpp on a computer on your network · any custom OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

Node.js is bundled

Install shiv and it runs. Nothing else to add.

Requirements

• iOS 15 or newer
• rootless (Dopamine / Procursus) → the iphoneos-arm64 package
• RootHide → the iphoneos-arm64e package
• Your own API key, or an OpenRouter account for browser sign-in
• shivtools (com.muratkurt.shivtools) for the device tools — pulled in automatically

Built and used on iPhone 15 Pro (iOS 17.0.3, RootHide) and iPhone XS (iOS 16.1.1, Dopamine rootless). Rootful jailbreaks are untested.

Information

Usage

Getting started

shiv

First launch asks for language, provider, API key and model.

Run it as mobile, not as root. Under root the files it writes end up owned by root and ~/.shiv stops being writable.

OpenRouter — no key to copy. Pick OpenRouter in the wizard and the browser sign-in starts by itself: Safari opens the approval page, you confirm with your OpenRouter account, and the key comes back to the app. If the browser cannot be opened automatically, type the short address it prints (http://127.0.0.1:<port>) into any browser on the device.

Any other provider — paste your key at the key step.

Settings live in ~/.shiv and survive upgrades. Sessions are stored locally in ~/.shiv/oturumlar.

Permissions

Shell commands and file writes always ask first. What counts as "ask every time" is set in /permissions, and /preferences covers the rest of the behaviour.

Reading files, listing directories and searching don't ask.

Everyday commands

Command names follow the interface language (/lang), so /login and /giriş are the same command. A prefix is enough — /prof.

Press Esc to stop a running answer. Esc again opens rewind, which takes the conversation back to an earlier point.

Shortcuts

A job sent to the background keeps running while you type. Press ↓ to reach the counter at the bottom, Enter for detail, k to stop it, ← to go back to the list, Esc to close. Output appears while the job is still running.

Tweak and reverse engineering

shiv measures the device instead of guessing. Start here:

/env

Reports theos, the SDK, frida, oldabi, the inject directory and the bundled tools — each one actually run, not just looked for, so a broken tool shows as broken.

/device scans the device itself: iOS, model, jailbreak, disk. /mac and /remote set up and check building on a Mac over the network.

On PATH — from shivtools

Since 2.5 the tools ship in com.muratkurt.shivtools, not in shiv. They are on PATH either way, and work from any shell or CLI.

shiv-ortam                 environment probe: jailbreak, theos, SDK, frida, oldabi
shiv-sinif <name>          class/method search from the dyld cache (no frida)
shiv-oku <bundle-id>       live ObjC class dump from a running app (frida)
shiv-cek <bundle-id>       FairPlay decrypt, on the device itself (frida)
shiv-ekran <bundle-id>     what is on screen in a running app (frida)
shiv-pencere               SpringBoard windows and view tree, read-only (frida)
shiv-yol <path>            a path in both namespaces, and which one exists
shiv-prefs-ornek <key>     a working example from Apple's own prefs bundles
shiv-frida-kur             diagnose frida: binary, package, agent, daemon,
                           conflicts and leftovers

Reading the screen

shiv-ekran <bundle-id>            what is on screen now
shiv-ekran --izle 40 <bundle-id>  record every page you open, for 40 s

The app has to be in front. Stay in it until the phone vibrates; the terminal comes back by itself.

In record mode, open the pages one by one and wait for the vibration on each. Every page is saved on its own: /var/mobile/tw/ekran-<bundle-id>-01.txt, -02.txt …

You don't have to type it. Ask shiv to read an app from the screen and it runs it.

TWEAK.md ships with the package and holds the recipes the assistant follows.

frida

shiv-oku, shiv-cek and shiv-ekran need frida-server 16.x — the client is linked against frida-core 16, so a 17.x server cannot talk to it. shiv-frida-kur reports this and changes nothing on its own. It installs the matching 16.1.4 only when you ask:

sudo shiv-frida-kur --kur

Rootless takes the GitHub release deb; RootHide takes it from the RootHide repo, which is unsigned and needs --allow-unauthenticated. The version is then held so an update can't replace it with 17.x.

Building

Tweaks for App Store apps and command line tools build on the phone with nothing to think about.

System process tweaks are arm64e, and the on-device compiler emits an older pointer authentication ABI. Two things in your code trip it: an @"..." string literal, and handing a block to the system. Hooks, selector calls and ivar reads are fine.

oldabi bridges both, and /env reports whether you have it. It does not cover Swift — the Swift runtime authenticates its own pointers somewhere oldabi never reaches, so a Swift arm64e tweak built on the phone still crashes. That one has to be built on a Mac.

For a package other people will install, declare it:

Depends: firmware (<< 15.0) | cy+cpu.arm64v8 | oldabi

Or connect a Mac with /mac and build there for a deb that depends on nothing. Both routes work; shiv explains the difference instead of pushing one.

Environment variables

SHIV_OLUK='╰' shiv

Changes the gutter glyph. Use it if your terminal draws the default one at the wrong width — lines will look one column short.

SHIV_ANLATIM_KATLA=1

Folds the assistant's narration as well as tool output.

SHIV_NODE_CAPRAZ=1

Builds debs on a Mac without a device attached.

Changelog

2.5.0

Changes

• Device tools moved into their own package, shivtools. shiv depends on it now; 16.7 → 13.3 MB
• Last shiv release — development continues in shivtools

Fixed

• Removing shiv deleted the tools shivtools had installed; installing shiv shadowed them

2.4.0

New

• shiv-pencere — SpringBoard's windows and view tree, read-only
• shiv-yol — a path in both namespaces, and which one exists

Fixed

• Prompt caching works on Claude models; every turn used to be paid in full
• The output limit is per model — long file writes were cut off mid-answer
• A reply cut at the limit no longer runs its half-written tool call
• Reasoning streams on Claude models instead of an empty spinner
• A truncated read says how to continue, instead of being read again from the top
• /context counts tool calls; it showed 28k where the real figure was 127k
• Temporary 402/429 provider errors are retried instead of dropping the turn
• A sub-task that ended on a tool call keeps its result

2.3.0

Reading the screen

• shiv-ekran <bundle-id> reads what is on screen in a running app: view controllers, classes, frames, text, accessibility ids. The app is not relaunched. Hook targets come from the screen, not from a guess
• Record mode — shiv-ekran --izle 40 <bundle-id> saves every page you open, one file each. The phone vibrates on every page
• Back to the terminal — when it's done, the terminal shiv runs in comes to the front by itself

Fixed

• Encrypted App Store apps are read live; no decryption step first
• Looking up an app's bundle id works again
• /env shows which terminal shiv runs in

2.2.0

Signing in

• OpenRouter signs in through the browser. No key to copy any more — pick OpenRouter in the wizard, the approval page opens by itself, you confirm in Safari and the key comes back. If the browser can't be opened, a short 127.0.0.1 address can be typed by hand. A failure names its stage: port, timeout, refusal, exchange or cancel
• /login signs in with a new profile; /key shows the key masked, refreshes it, or removes it and signs out
• Provider list reordered and extended — OpenRouter first, then DeepSeek, OpenAI, Moonshot (Kimi), xAI, and two new ones, Qwen and Z.ai. Default models updated
• Model lists page properly. A 455-model list used to wrap back to the start after nine entries; paging now works, and the same paging applies to every panel

Profiles

• /profile carries its own actions — add a profile and delete a profile sit in the list itself
• Deleting asks twice; the address, model and key go together
• Half-written subcommands match by prefix instead of being read as a profile name

frida

• shiv-frida-kur checks first and installs nothing. The default run changes nothing on the device: binary, package, agent, daemon, plus the states that quietly break an install. Installing is an explicit sudo shiv-frida-kur --kur
• Both layouts are handled — rootless from the GitHub release deb, RootHide from the RootHide repo, which is unsigned and needs --allow-unauthenticated
• A frida that wasn't running no longer reports as running. The check matched any process carrying the string on its command line; it asks for the process name now
• No more false conflict warning on RootHide, where two paths can be the same file

Interface

• Wrapped dim lines no longer turn white halfway through
• Full-width ＋ replaced with ASCII, which the terminal counts correctly

Packaging

• The source archive is produced again; its root was pinned to one path and failed silently on every build
• Mac cross-build produces both architectures with no device attached
• 51 tests have to pass before a package is produced

2.1.1

• shiv-sinif works again. dsc-disk.js was never copied into the package, so a clean install always died with ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND. Added, and the packaging now verifies it
• /env runs the tools instead of looking for the files. It used to report ok for tools that were broken; a tool that fails now shows as failed
• shivfrida disappeared on every reinstall. postrm had no guard, so a dpkg upgrade deleted the directory that had just been unpacked. Cleanup is bound to remove|purge now
• frida version. The server has to be 16.x — the repo's latest is 17.x and will not talk to shiv. On rootless, shiv-frida-kur fetches a matching 16.1.4 and pins it
• shiv-cek on rootless returned empty fields because the Dopamine bootstrap has no awk; rewritten with tr and cut
• Mac cross-build — with SHIV_NODE_CAPRAZ=1 debs can be produced on a Mac without a device

2.1.0

Rootless support, rebuilt

• Environment detection was wrong. The check was "is /var/jb a symlink" — but it is a symlink on Dopamine too, just pointing somewhere else. A rootless device reported itself as RootHide, and every piece of guidance that followed was built on that
• awk doesn't exist in the Dopamine bootstrap, so /env was saying "no frida" while frida was running
• The home directory was a shadow. $HOME points at /var/jb/var/mobile on rootless, so exports went somewhere Files and Filza never show. It uses the real /var/mobile now
• Frida isn't in the default rootless repos. /env says to add https://build.frida.re/

Guidance follows the environment

• Theos flavour, patcher and the recommended build flow are chosen from the device in front of you; a rootless device is no longer told to use the RootHide fork
• /env reports oldabi: a system-process tweak with a block builds on the phone when it is present, and needs it declared in Depends for anyone else. A Mac build is the alternative, not the only route

Packaging

• shiv-cek, shiv-oku and shivfrida were documented but never shipped. All three are in the deb now, and packaging ends by extracting them back out to verify

Interface

• Assistant narration is no longer folded; only tool output is (SHIV_ANLATIM_KATLA=1 restores the old behaviour)
• Queued messages show under the spinner
• The language step previews its description in the language under the cursor

2.0.0

shiv can now build tweaks end to end, on the device.

Tweak development

• Class and method lookup — reads the device's own shared cache, and now also binaries outside it (Control Centre modules, Settings bundles, SDKs embedded in apps)
• On-device decryption — shiv-cek <bundle-id> unwraps FairPlay without a Mac or Python; shiv-oku lists classes from a running app
• /env — measures the development environment before work starts
• Build guidance — the model knows which tweaks can be built on the phone and which need a Mac, and explains the difference instead of refusing flatly
• TWEAK.md ships with the package: measured recipes the model reads when it needs them

Background tasks

• Ctrl+B sends a running job to the background; ↓ reaches the counter, Enter opens detail, k stops it
• Output streams while the job is still running, and the timer ticks every second

Fixed

• Lines were losing their last character. The gutter mark ⎿ draws two columns in this terminal while shiv counted one, so every gutter line shifted a column and later redraws clipped the end. Now └.
• Command tails (exit=1, elapsed time) overflowed the width budget
• Ctrl+B was bound twice; the background branch was unreachable
• Fold state is saved, so /resume no longer reopens collapsed text
• Sessions broken by a half-finished tool call are repaired on load
• Mac connection and respring now go through the permission prompt

Documentation — a standalone tweak development guide ships in belgeler/, readable on its own without shiv.

1.3.0

New

• Class and method lookup — shiv reads your device's own system libraries, so tweak code uses real names instead of guesses
• Remote build — connect a Mac with /mac and build there without leaving the app
• /device — disk, conflicting tweaks, crash history, broken packages
• /export — export a session to a file, API keys stripped
• BILGI.md — your own notes, given to the model every session
• Context trimming — long conversations no longer hit the wall

Changed

• Smaller install: 96 → 71 MB
• The model now refuses on-device builds that would trigger Safe Mode, and explains what to do instead

Fixed

• Setup screen accepted the API key but would not advance
• Working directory could silently reset to the install path
• Crash logs and system paths under /rootfs were unreachable
• Long tool sessions could stop without saying why

1.2.1

Fixed — entering the API key on the setup screen.

1.2.0

Node.js is bundled now. Nothing else to install, on RootHide or rootless.

New

• Sub-agents — the model can delegate. Large jobs get split into background sub-tasks that run in parallel: one searches files while another reads logs, and the results come back merged.
• Performance presets — /performance. High, Balanced or Low power. Controls whether markdown is styled while streaming, how often the screen redraws, and how much history stays live.
• Rewind — take the conversation back to an earlier point. Press Esc twice, pick a point, continue from there.
• Background tasks — Ctrl+B sends a running job to the background and tells you when it finishes.
• Startup hints — short tips appear on the right when you open the app, then fade on their own.

Changed

• Speed. Typing, streaming and scrolling were rebuilt. Long sessions no longer slow down; the keyboard stays instant even after hundreds of messages.
• Response time. The app was sending more than it needed to on every message. Replies start sooner now.
• Look. New logo, consistent across the app, the icon and this page.

Fixed

• Wrapped lines keep their indentation
• Code blocks stay inside their border when wrapped
• Arrow keys and Esc no longer drop keystrokes
• Held backspace no longer jumps the cursor
• Arrow keys no longer get stuck on commands in history
• A crash on launch
• Streaming slowing down on long replies

1.0.1

New — /context and /about, plus a detailed activity view on Ctrl+O.

Changed — /model, /profile and /lang are pickable lists now instead of typed arguments. /settings reorganised. Panels behave consistently with each other. Clearer message when you interrupt a reply.

Fixed — duplicate welcome card; model selection getting lost; Turkish strings showing up in the English interface; words breaking mid-word at the edge; session picker breaking on rotation; command names getting truncated.

Better — fewer screen refreshes, and opening or closing the keyboard no longer resizes the panels.

1.0.0

• Rotation is smooth now. Turning the device reflows the screen to the new width and keeps your conversation with it.
• No more flicker. Only the parts that actually changed get redrawn, while typing and while a reply streams in.
• Landscape welcome card — logo on the left, shortcuts and working directory on the right.
• Three new themes. Switch with /theme.
• Command list is navigable. Walk it with the arrow keys, filter it as you type.
• Working directories added with /add-dir are clearer in the panel.
• Help panel reworked — two columns in landscape, full description of the selected command in portrait.

0.2.0

• Verified on a rootless device — the rootless build is no longer untested
• Node.js is now in this repo for both RootHide and rootless, so it installs alongside shiv
• Language handling fixed
• /geo output reworked

0.1.0

First release.

• Sessions are saved every turn and can be continued or searched
• Several providers side by side, switchable without losing context
• Turkish and English throughout, including the reply language
• Input history with arrow keys and Ctrl+R search
• Output panel on Ctrl+T
• Multi-line paste arrives as one message instead of one per line
• Two builds: rootless and RootHide

For personal use on jailbroken devices.