CLI Reference

Run AI-powered workflows from your terminal.

Prerequisites

1. Clone the repository and install dependencies:

   git clone https://github.com/coleam00/Archon
   cd Archon
   bun install

2. Make CLI globally available (recommended):

   cd packages/cli
   bun link

   This creates an archon command available from anywhere.

3. Authenticate with Claude:

   claude /login

Note: Examples below use archon (after bun link). If you skip step 2, use bun run cli from the repo directory instead.

Quick Start

# List available workflows (requires git repository)
archon workflow list --cwd /path/to/repo

# Run a workflow (auto-creates isolated worktree by default)
archon workflow run assist --cwd /path/to/repo "Explain the authentication flow"

# Explicit branch name for the worktree
archon workflow run plan --cwd /path/to/repo --branch feature-auth "Add OAuth support"

# Opt out of isolation (run in live checkout)
archon workflow run assist --cwd /path/to/repo --no-worktree "Quick question"

Note: Workflow and isolation commands require running from within a git repository. Running from subdirectories automatically resolves to the repo root. The version, help, chat, and setup commands work anywhere.

Commands

chat <message>

Send a message to the orchestrator for a one-off AI interaction.

archon chat "What does the orchestrator do?"

setup

Interactive setup wizard for credentials and configuration.

archon setup
archon setup --spawn  # Open in a new terminal window

Flags:

Flag	Effect
--spawn	Open setup wizard in a new terminal window

workflow list

List workflows available in target directory.

archon workflow list --cwd /path/to/repo

# Machine-readable output for scripting
archon workflow list --cwd /path/to/repo --json

Discovers workflows from .archon/workflows/ (recursive), ~/.archon/.archon/workflows/ (global), and bundled defaults. See Global Workflows.

Flags:

Flag	Effect
--cwd <path>	Target directory (required for most use cases)
--json	Output machine-readable JSON instead of formatted text

With --json, outputs { "workflows": [...], "errors": [...] }. Optional fields (provider, model, modelReasoningEffort, webSearchMode) are omitted when not set on a workflow.

workflow run <name> [message]

Run a workflow with an optional user message.

# Basic usage
archon workflow run assist --cwd /path/to/repo "What does this function do?"

# With isolation
archon workflow run plan --cwd /path/to/repo --branch feature-x "Add caching"

Progress events (node start/complete/fail/skip, approval gates) are written to stderr during execution.

Flags:

Flag	Effect
--cwd <path>	Target directory (required for most use cases)
--branch <name>	Explicit branch name for the worktree
--from <branch>, --from-branch <branch>	Override base branch (start-point for worktree)
--no-worktree	Opt out of isolation — run directly in live checkout
--resume	Resume from last failed run at the working path (skips completed nodes)
--allow-env-keys	Grant env-leak-gate consent during auto-registration (bypasses the gate for this codebase). Audit-logged as env_leak_consent_granted with actor: 'user-cli'. See security.md.
--quiet, -q	Suppress all progress output to stderr
--verbose, -v	Also show tool-level events (tool name and duration)

Default (no flags):

• Creates worktree with auto-generated branch (archon/task-<workflow>-<timestamp>)
• Auto-registers codebase if in a git repo

With --branch:

• Creates/reuses worktree at ~/.archon/workspaces/<owner>/<repo>/worktrees/<branch>/
• Reuses existing worktree if healthy

With --no-worktree:

• Runs in target directory directly (no isolation)
• Mutually exclusive with --branch and --from

Name Matching:

Workflow names are resolved using a 4-tier fallback hierarchy. This applies consistently across the CLI and all chat platforms (Slack, Telegram, Web, GitHub, Discord):

1. Exact match - archon-assist matches archon-assist
2. Case-insensitive - Archon-Assist matches archon-assist
3. Suffix match - assist matches archon-assist (looks for -assist suffix)
4. Substring match - smart matches archon-smart-pr-review

If multiple workflows match at the same tier, an error lists the candidates:

Ambiguous workflow 'review'. Did you mean:
  - archon-review
  - custom-review

workflow status

Show all running workflow runs across all worktrees.

archon workflow status
archon workflow status --json

workflow resume

Resume a failed workflow run. Re-executes the workflow, automatically skipping nodes that completed in the prior run.

archon workflow resume <run-id>

workflow abandon

Discard a workflow run (marks it as failed). Use this to unblock a worktree when you don’t want to resume.

archon workflow abandon <run-id>

workflow approve

Approve a paused workflow run at an interactive approval gate. Optionally provide a comment that is available to the workflow via $LOOP_USER_INPUT.

archon workflow approve <run-id>
archon workflow approve <run-id> "Looks good, proceed"
archon workflow approve <run-id> --comment "Looks good, proceed"

workflow reject

Reject a paused workflow run at an approval gate. Optionally provide a reason that is available to the workflow via $REJECTION_REASON.

archon workflow reject <run-id>
archon workflow reject <run-id> --reason "Needs more tests"

workflow cleanup

Delete old terminal workflow run records from the database.

archon workflow cleanup        # Default: 7 days
archon workflow cleanup 30     # Custom threshold

workflow event emit

Emit a workflow event directly to the database. Primarily used inside workflow loop prompts to record story-level lifecycle events.

archon workflow event emit --run-id <uuid> --type <event-type> [--data <json>]

Flags:

Flag	Required	Description
--run-id	Yes	UUID of the workflow run
--type	Yes	Event type (e.g., ralph_story_started, node_completed)
--data	No	JSON string attached to the event. Invalid JSON prints a warning and is ignored.

Exit code: 0 on success, 1 when --run-id, --type is missing, or --type is not a valid event type. Event persistence is best-effort (non-throwing) — check server logs if events appear missing.

isolation list

Show all active worktree environments.

archon isolation list

Groups by codebase, shows branch, workflow type, platform, and days since activity.

isolation cleanup [days]

Remove stale environments.

# Default: 7 days
archon isolation cleanup

# Custom threshold
archon isolation cleanup 14

# Remove environments with branches merged into main (also deletes remote branches)
archon isolation cleanup --merged

# Also remove environments whose PRs were closed without merging
archon isolation cleanup --merged --include-closed

Merge detection uses three signals in order: git branch ancestry (fast-forward / merge commit), patch equivalence (squash-merge via git cherry), and GitHub PR state via the gh CLI. The gh CLI is optional — if absent, only git signals are used.

By default, branches with a CLOSED PR are skipped. Pass --include-closed to clean those up as well. Branches with an OPEN PR are always skipped.

validate workflows [name]

Validate workflow YAML definitions and their referenced resources (command files, MCP configs, skill directories).

archon validate workflows                 # Validate all workflows
archon validate workflows my-workflow     # Validate a single workflow
archon validate workflows my-workflow --json  # Machine-readable JSON output

Checks: YAML syntax, DAG structure (cycles, dependency refs), command file existence, MCP config files, skill directories, provider compatibility. Returns actionable error messages with “did you mean?” suggestions for typos.

Exit code: 0 = all valid, 1 = errors found.

validate commands [name]

Validate command files (.md) in .archon/commands/.

archon validate commands                  # Validate all commands
archon validate commands my-command       # Validate a single command

Checks: file exists, non-empty, valid name.

Exit code: 0 = all valid, 1 = errors found.

complete <branch> [branch2 ...]

Remove a branch’s worktree, local branch, and remote branch, and mark its isolation environment as destroyed.

archon complete feature-auth
archon complete feature-auth --force  # bypass uncommitted-changes check

Flags:

Flag	Effect
--force	Skip uncommitted-changes guard

Use this after a PR is merged and you no longer need the worktree or branches. Accepts multiple branch names in one call.

version

Show version, build type, and database info.

archon version

Global Options

Option	Effect
--cwd <path>	Override working directory (default: current directory)
--quiet, -q	Reduce log verbosity to warnings and errors only
--verbose, -v	Show debug-level output
--json	Output machine-readable JSON (for workflow list, workflow status)
--help, -h	Show help message

Working Directory

The CLI determines where to run based on:

1. --cwd flag (if provided)
2. Current directory (default)

Running from a subdirectory (e.g., /repo/packages/cli) automatically resolves to the git repository root (e.g., /repo).

When using --branch, workflows run inside the worktree directory.

Commands and workflows are loaded from the working directory at runtime. The CLI reads directly from disk, so it picks up uncommitted changes immediately. This is different from the server (Telegram/Slack/GitHub), which reads from the workspace clone at ~/.archon/workspaces/ — that clone only syncs from the remote before worktree creation, so changes must be pushed to take effect there.

Environment

The CLI loads environment variables exclusively from ~/.archon/.env. It does not load .env from the current working directory. This prevents conflicts when running Archon from target projects that have their own database configurations.

On startup, the CLI:

1. Deletes any DATABASE_URL that Bun may have auto-loaded from the target repo’s .env
2. Loads ~/.archon/.env with override: true
3. Auto-enables global Claude auth if no explicit tokens are set

Database

• Without DATABASE_URL (default): Uses SQLite at ~/.archon/archon.db — zero setup, auto-initialized on first run
• With DATABASE_URL: Uses PostgreSQL (optional, for cloud/advanced deployments)

Both work transparently. Most users never need to configure a database.

Examples

# One-off AI chat
archon chat "How does error handling work in this codebase?"

# Interactive setup wizard
archon setup

# Quick question (auto-isolated in archon/task-assist-<timestamp>)
archon workflow run assist --cwd ~/projects/my-app "How does error handling work here?"

# Quick question without isolation
archon workflow run assist --cwd ~/projects/my-app --no-worktree "How does error handling work here?"

# Plan a feature (auto-isolated)
archon workflow run plan --cwd ~/projects/my-app "Add rate limiting to the API"

# Implement with explicit branch name
archon workflow run implement --cwd ~/projects/my-app --branch feature-rate-limit "Add rate limiting"

# Branch from a specific source branch instead of auto-detected default
archon workflow run implement --cwd ~/projects/my-app --branch test-adapters --from feature/extract-adapters "Test adapter changes"

# Approve or reject a paused workflow
archon workflow approve <run-id> "Ship it"
archon workflow reject <run-id> --reason "Missing test coverage"

# Check worktrees after work session
archon isolation list

# Clean up old worktrees
archon isolation cleanup