CLI

Ishi CLI options and commands.

The Ishi CLI by default starts the TUI when run without any arguments.

ishi

But it also accepts commands as documented on this page. This allows you to interact with Ishi programmatically.

ishi run "Explain how closures work in JavaScript"

tui

Start the Ishi terminal user interface.

claw [project]

Flags

Flag	Short	Description
`--continue`	`-c`	Continue the last session
`--session`	`-s`	Session ID to continue
`--prompt`	`-p`	Prompt to use
`--model`	`-m`	Model to use in the form of provider/model
`--agent`		Agent to use
`--port`		Port to listen on
`--hostname`		Hostname to listen on

Commands

The Ishi CLI also has the following commands.

agent

Manage agents for Ishi.

ishi agent [command]

create

Create a new agent with custom configuration.

ishi agent create

This command will guide you through creating a new agent with a custom system prompt and tool configuration.

auth

Command to manage credentials and login for providers.

ishi auth [command]

Ishi is powered by the provider list at Models.dev, so you can use ishi auth login to configure API keys for any provider you’d like to use. This is stored in ~/.local/share/ishi/auth.json.

ishi auth login

When Ishi starts up it loads the providers from the credentials file. And if there are any keys defined in your environments or a .env file in your project.

list

Lists all the authenticated providers as stored in the credentials file.

ishi auth list

Or the short version.

ishi auth ls

logout

Logs you out of a provider by clearing it from the credentials file.

ishi auth logout

github

Manage the GitHub agent for repository automation.

ishi github [command]

install

Install the GitHub agent in your repository.

ishi github install

This sets up the necessary GitHub Actions workflow and guides you through the configuration process. Learn more.

run

Run the GitHub agent. This is typically used in GitHub Actions.

ishi github run

Flags

Flag	Description
`--event`	GitHub mock event to run the agent for
`--token`	GitHub personal access token

models

List all available models from configured providers.

ishi models [provider]

This command displays all models available across your configured providers in the format provider/model.

This is useful for figuring out the exact model name to use in your config.

You can optionally pass a provider ID to filter models by that provider.

ishi models anthropic

Flags

Flag	Description
`--refresh`	Refresh the models cache from models.dev
`--verbose`	Use more verbose model output (includes metadata like costs)

Use the --refresh flag to update the cached model list. This is useful when new models have been added to a provider and you want to see them in Ishi.

ishi models --refresh

run

Run ishi in non-interactive mode by passing a prompt directly.

ishi run [message..]

This is useful for scripting, automation, or when you want a quick answer without launching the full TUI. For example.

ishi run Explain the use of context in Go

You can also attach to a running ishi serve instance to avoid MCP server cold boot times on every run:

# Start a headless server in one terminal
ishi serve

# In another terminal, run commands that attach to it
ishi run --attach http://localhost:4096 "Explain async/await in JavaScript"

Flags

Flag	Short	Description
`--command`		The command to run, use message for args
`--continue`	`-c`	Continue the last session
`--session`	`-s`	Session ID to continue
`--share`		Share the session
`--model`	`-m`	Model to use in the form of provider/model
`--agent`		Agent to use
`--file`	`-f`	File(s) to attach to message
`--format`		Format: default (formatted) or json (raw JSON events)
`--title`		Title for the session (uses truncated prompt if no value provided)
`--attach`		Attach to a running ishi server (e.g., http://localhost:4096)
`--port`		Port for the local server (defaults to random port)

serve

Start a headless ishi server for API access. Check out the server docs for the full HTTP interface.

ishi serve

This starts an HTTP server that provides API access to ishi functionality without the TUI interface.

Flags

Flag	Short	Description
`--port`	`-p`	Port to listen on
`--hostname`		Hostname to listen on

upgrade

Updates ishi to the latest version or a specific version.

ishi upgrade [target]

To upgrade to the latest version.

ishi upgrade

To upgrade to a specific version.

ishi upgrade v0.1.48

Flags

Flag	Short	Description
`--method`	`-m`	The installation method that was used; curl, npm, pnpm, bun, brew

Global Flags

The ishi CLI takes the following global flags.

Flag	Short	Description
`--help`	`-h`	Display help
`--version`	`-v`	Print version number
`--print-logs`		Print logs to stderr
`--log-level`		Log level (DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR)

Environment variables

Ishi can be configured using environment variables.

Variable	Type	Description
`CLAW_AUTO_SHARE`	boolean	Automatically share sessions
`CLAW_GIT_BASH_PATH`	string	Path to Git Bash executable on Windows
`ISHI_CONFIG`	string	Path to config file
`ISHI_CONFIG_DIR`	string	Path to config directory
`ISHI_CONFIG_CONTENT`	string	Inline json config content
`CLAW_DISABLE_AUTOUPDATE`	boolean	Disable automatic update checks
`CLAW_DISABLE_PRUNE`	boolean	Disable pruning of old data
`CLAW_DISABLE_TERMINAL_TITLE`	boolean	Disable automatic terminal title updates
`CLAW_PERMISSION`	string	Inlined json permissions config
`CLAW_DISABLE_DEFAULT_PLUGINS`	boolean	Disable default plugins
`ISHI_DISABLE_LSP_DOWNLOAD`	boolean	Disable automatic LSP server downloads
`CLAW_ENABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_MODELS`	boolean	Enable experimental models
`CLAW_DISABLE_AUTOCOMPACT`	boolean	Disable automatic context compaction
`CLAW_CLIENT`	string	Client identifier (defaults to `cli`)
`CLAW_ENABLE_EXA`	boolean	Enable Exa web search tools

Experimental

These environment variables enable experimental features that may change or be removed.

Variable	Type	Description
`CLAW_EXPERIMENTAL`	boolean	Enable all experimental features
`CLAW_EXPERIMENTAL_ICON_DISCOVERY`	boolean	Enable icon discovery
`CLAW_EXPERIMENTAL_DISABLE_COPY_ON_SELECT`	boolean	Disable copy on select in TUI
`CLAW_EXPERIMENTAL_BASH_MAX_OUTPUT_LENGTH`	number	Max output length for bash commands
`CLAW_EXPERIMENTAL_BASH_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT_MS`	number	Default timeout for bash commands in ms
`CLAW_EXPERIMENTAL_OUTPUT_TOKEN_MAX`	number	Max output tokens for LLM responses
`CLAW_EXPERIMENTAL_FILEWATCHER`	boolean	Enable file watcher for entire dir
`CLAW_EXPERIMENTAL_OXFMT`	boolean	Enable oxfmt formatter