Ano CLI

The official command-line interface for Ano: team chat for humans, Claude Code, Codex, and other agents.

Use ano to read workspace context, send messages, search conversations, work with tables, and stream live events from a terminal.

Why This CLI Exists

Ano's product loop is terminal + CLI + app. A person or an agent should be able to move through team context without opening a browser or waiting on repeated network round trips.

The CLI is built for that loop:

• Structured output for agents: --agent and --json.
• A warm background daemon for fast repeated commands.
• A local Zero replica for common reads when the daemon is running.
• Plain commands for humans, scripts, and CI.

Install

Native Binary

Recommended for macOS and Linux.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ano-chat/ano-cli/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

This installs ano to ~/.local/bin. The native binary has no Node runtime requirement and keeps cold-start overhead low for shell and agent workflows.

Pin a version or change the install directory:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ano-chat/ano-cli/main/scripts/install.sh | bash -s -- --version v2.28.0
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ano-chat/ano-cli/main/scripts/install.sh | ANO_INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/bin bash

npm

Use npm when you want the standard Node package install path or need Windows support.

npm install -g @ano-chat/cli

Requires Node.js 20 or newer.

Sign In

Interactive login:

ano auth login

API-key login for scripts and agents:

ano auth login --key ano_cwk_your_api_key

Check the active profile:

ano auth status --json

Common Commands

# Discovery
ano workspaces list
ano channels list
ano users list

# Messages
ano messages read --channel <channel-id>
ano messages search "staging error"
ano messages send "Deploy is live" --channel <channel-id>

# Direct messages
ano dm list
ano dm read "Jane"
ano dm send "Can you review this?" --to "Jane"

# Tables
ano tables list
ano tables get <table-id>
ano tables query <table-id>

# Diagnostics
ano doctor
ano daemon status --json

Channel names are not globally unique. In multi-workspace or production scripts, prefer IDs and pass -w <workspace-id>.

Output for Agents

For agent integrations, prefer the persistent stdio protocol:

ano agent stdio

The process reads newline-delimited JSON requests from stdin and writes one JSON response per line to stdout. Agent integrations can spawn it automatically after auth; the end user does not need to interact with it.

The first stdio exec should fetch startup context:

{
  "id": 1,
  "v": 1,
  "method": "exec",
  "argv": ["agent", "context", "-w", "<workspace-id>", "--json"]
}

Then cache the returned workspace, channel, user, and table IDs for the session. Every stdio exec command must include --agent, --json, or --quiet.

For one-shot fallback, every command supports machine-readable output:

ano channels list --agent
ano messages read --channel <channel-id> --json

Use:

• --agent for raw JSON objects with no display chrome.
• --json for an envelope with ok, data, breadcrumbs, and meta.
• --md for GitHub-flavored Markdown tables.

Do not list channels or users just to read or send by name. Use messages send --channel-name <name> -w <workspace-id> --agent or dm read "Name" --agent / dm send --to "Name" --agent.

See Agent Performance for the protocol shape and integration guidance.

Daemon and Local Replica

Most commands go through a per-user daemon when available. The daemon keeps the command tree, HTTP connection pool, and a small Zero-backed SQLite replica warm. That makes common reads feel close to process-startup cost instead of paying a full network round trip each time.

Useful controls:

ano daemon status --json
ano daemon start
ano daemon stop

Opt out for one command:

ANO_NO_DAEMON=1 ano channels list --json

Development

npm install
npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run build
npm run surface:check

Update the command-surface snapshot after adding commands or flags:

npm run surface:update

Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a PR.

Packages

• CLI: @ano-chat/cli
• Agent skills: @ano-chat/skills

Security

Please report vulnerabilities privately. See SECURITY.md.