diff --git a/main.cpp b/main.cpp
index 4b220c8cf..a3f24d243 100644
--- a/main.cpp
+++ b/main.cpp
@@ -990,6 +990,10 @@ int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
         params.interactive = true;
     }
 
+    if (params.interactive_start) {
+        params.interactive = true;
+    }
+
     fprintf(stderr, "\n");
     fprintf(stderr, "%s: prompt: '%s'\n", __func__, params.prompt.c_str());
     fprintf(stderr, "%s: number of tokens in prompt = %zu\n", __func__, embd_inp.size());
@@ -1032,7 +1036,7 @@ int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
 #endif
                " - Press Return to return control to LLaMa.\n"
                " - If you want to submit another line, end your input in '\\'.\n\n");
-        is_interacting = true;
+        is_interacting = params.interactive_start;
     }
 
     int input_consumed = 0;
diff --git a/utils.cpp b/utils.cpp
index 7c6864c8f..92972c2b6 100644
--- a/utils.cpp
+++ b/utils.cpp
@@ -66,6 +66,8 @@ bool gpt_params_parse(int argc, char ** argv, gpt_params & params) {
             params.model = argv[++i];
         } else if (arg == "-i" || arg == "--interactive") {
             params.interactive = true;
+        } else if (arg == "--interactive-first") {
+            params.interactive_start = true;
         } else if (arg == "-ins" || arg == "--instruct") {
             params.instruct = true;
         } else if (arg == "--color") {