@nvidia-elements/cli

NVIDIA Design System and UI Agent Harness for AI/ML Factories, Robotics, and Autonomous Vehicles.

The @nvidia-elements/cli is a dual-mode command-line tool for the Elements Design System. It provides interactive CLI commands and a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for AI assistant integration.

Purpose

This package serves two primary modes:

1. Interactive CLI (nve command) - Command-line interface with interactive prompts for:

   • Component API discovery and search
   • Example template browsing and searching
   • Template linting and validation
   • Project scaffolding and health checks
   • Changelog and version information
   • Design token access
   • Icon name lookup
   • Bundled agent skill access

2. MCP Server (nve mcp command) - Model Context Protocol server that:

   • Exposes all CLI tools to AI assistants (Claude, Cursor, etc.)
   • Provides context-specific prompts for common tasks
   • Enables AI-assisted development with Elements components
   • Integrates Elements knowledge directly into AI workflows

Getting Started

The best way to get started is to run the install script.

curl -fsSL https://nvidia.github.io/elements/install.sh | bash

On Windows, run the PowerShell installer.

irm https://nvidia.github.io/elements/install.ps1 | iex

For agents and CI, invoke the canonical path directly: $HOME/.nve/bin/nve on macOS and Linux, or $env:LOCALAPPDATA\nve\bin\nve.exe on Windows.

Alternatively you can install with Node.js and npm.

npm install -g @nvidia-elements/cli

Usage

| Command | Description | | ----------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | nve | Show About and help output. | | nve api.list [format] | Get a list of all available Elements (nve-*) APIs and components. | | nve api.get <names..> [--format <format>] | Get documentation for one to five known components or attributes (nve-*). | | nve api.validate [paths..] | Check HTML and JSON from explicit file paths, glob patterns, or standard input (--stdin) using Elements lint rules. | | nve api.imports.get <template> | Get ESM imports for an HTML template using Elements APIs (nve-*). | | nve api.tokens.list [format] [query] | Get available semantic CSS custom properties and design tokens for theming. | | nve api.icons.list [format] | Get available icon names for nve-icon and nve-icon-button. | | nve examples.list [format] | Get available Elements (nve-*) starter templates, patterns, and examples. | | nve examples.get <id> [format] | Get the full template of a known example or pattern by ID. | | nve project.create <type> [cwd] [start] | Create a new starter project. | | nve project.setup [cwd] | Set up or update a project to use Elements. | | nve project.validate <type> [cwd] | Check project configuration and dependencies. | | nve packages.list | Get latest published versions of all Elements packages. | | nve packages.get <name> | Get details for a specific Elements package. | | nve packages.changelogs.get <name> [format] [limit] | Retrieve changelog details by package name. | | nve skills.list [format] | Get available Elements agent skills and context. | | nve skills.get <name> [format] | Get a bundled Elements agent skill by name. | | nve mcp | Start the MCP server. |

Global Options

| Option | Description | | ----------- | --------------------------------------------------- | | --help | Show help. | | --version | Show version number. | | --upgrade | Upgrade Elements CLI (nve) to the latest version. | | --debug | Enable debug output for tools. |

MCP

Quick Setup

The fastest way to configure MCP is with the project.setup command:

nve project.setup

This detects your package manager, configures the MCP server for Cursor, Codex, and Claude Code, and adds Elements core dependencies to the project.

Claude Code

Install to Claude Code by adding the configuration to your .mcp.json file. The file is typically located at ~/.config/claude-code/.mcp.json or %APPDATA%\claude-code\.mcp.json on Windows.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "elements": {
      "description": "NVIDIA Elements UI Design System (nve-*), custom element schemas, APIs and examples",
      "command": "nve",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

After adding the configuration, restart Claude Code for the changes to take effect. The Elements MCP tools are then available for use in your conversations.

Cursor

Install to Cursor with the MCP configuration below.

// .cursor/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "elements": {
      "description": "NVIDIA Elements UI Design System (nve-*), custom element schemas, APIs and examples",
      "command": "nve",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Codex

Install to Codex with the MCP configuration below.

[mcp_servers.elements]
description = "NVIDIA Elements UI Design System (nve-*), custom element schemas, APIs and examples"
command = "nve"
args = ["mcp"]

Prompts

| Prompt | Description | Example Prompt | | -------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | | /about | A brief introduction to Elements | /about | | /doctor | Verify Elements setup and MCP configuration | /doctor | | /search | Context for searching Elements APIs | /search What works for notifying a user of a long running process? | | /new-project | Context for creating a new Elements project | /new-project Create a todo app | | /migrate | Context for migrating from deprecated Elements APIs | /migrate Migrate this project from deprecated Elements APIs |

Skills

Skills provide persistent context to AI agents for building UI with Elements.

| Skill | Description | | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | about | Instructions for providing a brief introduction for using the Elements Design System. | | authoring | Best practices and workflow guidance for authoring UI with NVIDIA Elements. | | doctor | Instructions for ensuring the Elements Design System is setup correctly. | | artifact | Use when creating throwaway UI artifacts, prototypes, demos, Claude Artifacts, Codex, or GPT Sites pages, or other standalone HTML interfaces that should use the NVIDIA Elements CDN template. | | integration | Best practices and workflow guidance for creating or setting up NVIDIA Elements projects. | | migration | Instructions for migrating a project from deprecated Elements APIs using lint tooling and CLI health checks. | | search | Best practices for providing Elements API Documentation. | | elements | Default skill for UI-related work or NVIDIA Elements (nve-*), including HTML, CSS, layout, theming, components, applications, prototypes, Claude Artifacts, Codex Sites pages, and standalone UI artifacts. |

Run nve skills.list or call MCP skills_list for the authoritative list. Deployments with the playground service enabled can also expose a playground skill for creating Elements Playground prototypes.

The Agent Skills well-known endpoint publishes the elements skill from the same registry for skill-only installation with the open skills CLI:

npx skills add https://nvidia.github.io/elements

This hosted route does not install the Elements CLI or configure the MCP server. Use nve project.setup for complete project setup, and continue to use the CLI or MCP tools for deterministic API lookup and template validation. Other registry skills, including a conditional playground skill, remain available through nve rather than the hosted endpoint.

Tools

| Tool | Description | | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | api_list | Get list of all available Elements (nve-*) APIs and components. | | api_get | Get documentation known components or attributes by name (nve-*). | | api_validate | Checks HTML and JSON files or supplied content with Elements lint rules. | | api_imports_get | Get esm imports for a given HTML template using Elements APIs (nve-*). | | api_tokens_list | Get available semantic CSS custom properties / design tokens for theming. | | packages_list | Get latest published versions of all Elements packages. | | packages_get | Get details for a specific Elements package. | | packages_changelogs_get | Retrieve changelog details by package name. | | examples_list | Get list of available Elements (nve-*) patterns and examples. | | examples_get | Get the full template of a known example or pattern by id. | | skills_list | Get a list of available Elements agent skills and context fragments. | | skills_get | Get a bundled Elements agent skill or context fragment by name. | | project_create | Create a new starter project. | | project_validate | Check project for configuration issues and dependencies. | | project_setup | Setup or update a project to use Elements. |

Links

• Documentation
• Changelog
• GitHub Repo
• npm
• MCP Registry