@answer-engine/cli

Terminal-native CLI for Answer Engine — search, retrieve, and research content from the command line.

Install

npm install -g @answer-engine/cli

Quick Start

# 1. Save your API key
ae auth login

# 2. Search your content library
ae search "customer complaints about billing"

# 3. Get full details on a result
ae get <content-id>

Authentication

The CLI needs an API key to connect to your Answer Engine instance.

# Interactive login — prompts for your API key
ae auth login

# Check connection and credit balance
ae auth status

# Or use environment variables instead
export ANSWER_ENGINE_API_KEY="ae_live_..."
export ANSWER_ENGINE_API_URL="http://localhost:5050"

Creating an API key (local development)

If you're running the Answer Engine dev server locally:

ae auth create-key "My CLI Key" --dev

This only works against localhost and requires the --dev flag for safety.

Configuration

Config is stored at ~/.config/answer-engine/config.yml with owner-only permissions (0600).

Resolution order: CLI flags > environment variables > config file

# View current config
ae config show

# Set the API URL
ae config set api_url https://your-instance.example.com

# Set default output format
ae config set default_output json

| Config Key | Env Var | Default | |---|---|---| | api_key | ANSWER_ENGINE_API_KEY | (none) | | api_url | ANSWER_ENGINE_API_URL | http://localhost:5050 | | default_output | — | auto |

Commands

Search

Search your content library using fulltext, semantic, or hybrid search.

ae search <query> [options]

| Option | Description | Default | |---|---|---| | -t, --type <type> | Search type: hybrid, fulltext, semantic | hybrid | | -l, --limit <n> | Maximum results | 10 | | --include <fields> | Fields to include (comma-separated: summary, content, tags, metadata) | summary,tags | | --content-types <types> | Filter by content types (comma-separated) | — | | --tags <tags> | Filter by tag slugs (comma-separated) | — |

Examples:

ae search "onboarding flow"
ae search "billing" -t semantic -l 5
ae search "bugs" --tags bug,urgent --content-types ticket

Cost: 1 credit per search

Get

Retrieve full content items by ID.

ae get <id> [id2...] [options]

| Option | Description | Default | |---|---|---| | --include <fields> | Fields to include (comma-separated: summary, content, tags, metadata, children, analysis) | summary,content,tags,metadata,children |

Examples:

ae get 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000
ae get id1 id2 id3 --include content,metadata

Cost: 1 credit

Summarize

Use AI to summarize or analyze content from your library.

ae summarize <prompt> [options]

| Option | Description | Default | |---|---|---| | -l, --limit <n> | Max items to analyze | 20 | | --content-types <types> | Filter by content types | — | | --tags <tags> | Filter by tag slugs | — |

Examples:

ae summarize "What are the top customer complaints?"
ae summarize "Key risks" --tags finance -l 50

Cost: 10 credits

Scrape

Scrape a web page and save it to your content library.

ae scrape <url> [options]

| Option | Description | |---|---| | --html | Include raw HTML in output |

Cost: 1 credit

Crawl

Crawl multiple pages from a domain.

ae crawl <domain> [options]

| Option | Description | Default | |---|---|---| | -m, --max-pages <n> | Maximum pages to crawl | 10 |

Examples:

ae crawl example.com
ae crawl docs.example.com -m 50

Cost: 1 credit per page

Web Search

Search the web and optionally scrape results.

ae web-search <query> [options]

| Option | Description | |---|---| | -s, --site <domain> | Limit search to a specific site | | --scrape | Also scrape full content from result URLs |

Examples:

ae web-search "competitor analysis"
ae web-search "API documentation" -s example.com

Cost: 1 credit

Tags

Browse and search your content tags.

ae tags list                  # List all tags grouped by category
ae tags search <query>        # Search tags by name

System

ae status                     # API health check + credit balance
ae schema                     # Full content schema (types, tags, capabilities)

Output Formats

The CLI auto-detects your terminal:

• Interactive (TTY): Colored, formatted tables
• Piped: Clean JSON for scripting

Force JSON output with the --json flag:

ae search "test" --json
ae search "test" | jq '.data.results[].title'

Exit Codes

| Code | Meaning | |---|---| | 0 | Success | | 1 | User error (invalid args) | | 2 | API error (auth, credits, server) | | 3 | Config error (no API key) |

License

MIT