Orthogonal CLI

Command-line tool for the Orthogonal platform — discover and call APIs and agent skills from your terminal.

Search for APIs in natural language, call them with a single command, and pay per request from your Orthogonal credit balance.

Table of Contents

• Why Orthogonal
• Installation
• Quick Start
• Authentication
• Calling APIs
• Agent Skills
• Account & Usage
• Command Reference
• Configuration
• Programmatic Use
• Development
• License

Why Orthogonal

Orthogonal puts a catalog of APIs and agent skills behind one account and one balance. The CLI lets you — and your AI agents — find and call them without leaving the terminal:

• Discover APIs and skills with natural-language search.
• Call any endpoint with one command — auth, billing, and routing are handled for you.
• Pay per use from a single credit balance instead of juggling dozens of provider subscriptions.
• Script it — clean JSON output (--raw) pipes straight into jq and shell pipelines.

Installation

Requires Node.js 18+.

# Install globally
npm install -g @orth/cli

# …or run without installing
npx @orth/cli <command>

Verify the install:

orth --version

Quick Start

# 1. Authenticate (get a key at https://orthogonal.com)
orth login --key orth_live_your_key

# 2. Find an API in plain English
orth api search "search the web"

# 3. Call an endpoint
orth run tavily /search -q query="latest AI news"

# 4. See what it cost
orth balance

Authentication

# Log in with your API key (stored in your OS user-config directory)
orth login --key orth_live_your_key

# …or use an environment variable (takes precedence — great for CI)
export ORTHOGONAL_API_KEY=orth_live_your_key

# Show the current identity
orth whoami

# Remove the stored key
orth logout

Get an API key from your Orthogonal dashboard.

Calling APIs

Discover & inspect

# Natural-language search across the catalog
orth api search "generate images"

# List every available API
orth api list

# Show an API's endpoints
orth api show tavily

# Show one endpoint's parameters, pricing, and schema
orth api show tavily /search

Call an endpoint

# GET with query params
orth run fantastic-jobs /v1/active-ats -q time_frame=1h -q limit=10

# Query params can also be passed as a single string
orth run fantastic-jobs /v1/active-ats -q "time_frame=1h&limit=10"

# POST with a JSON body
orth run some-api /v1/generate -X POST -b '{"prompt":"a red bicycle"}'

# Estimate the cost without spending credits
orth run some-api /v1/generate --dry-run

# Save a binary response (image, audio, PDF, …) to a file
orth run image-api /v1/render -q prompt="sunset" -o out.png

# Machine-readable output for pipelines
orth run tavily /search -q query="orthogonal" --raw | jq '.results[0].url'

Generate integration code

Scaffold a ready-to-run snippet for any endpoint:

orth api code tavily /search                 # TypeScript (default)
orth api code tavily /search --lang python   # Python
orth api code tavily /search --lang curl     # cURL

Request a new API

orth api request https://docs.example.com/api

Agent Skills

Skills are packaged capabilities your AI agents can install and run. Browse the library, publish your own, and sync them to your local agent directories.

# Browse & search
orth skills list                     # verified, discoverable skills
orth skills search "web scraping"
orth skills show <slug>              # details + files

# Install into your local agent skill directories
orth skills add <slug>              # alias: orth skills install <slug>

# Author & publish
orth skills init [name]             # scaffold a SKILL.md template
orth skills create <owner/repo>    # create a skill from a GitHub repo
orth skills submit [path]          # submit a local skill
orth skills push <slug> [path]     # push local changes to the platform
orth skills update <slug> [path]   # pull the latest version locally
orth skills mine                   # list your skills
orth skills request-verification <slug>
orth skills request <input>        # request a skill by URL or description

Verification workflow: to make a skill discoverable to others, go init/create → submit → request-verification. Once approved, it becomes discoverable in the library.

Account & Usage

orth balance   # current credit balance
orth usage     # recent API usage

Command Reference

| Command | Description | | --- | --- | | orth login / logout / whoami | Manage authentication | | orth balance / usage | Credit balance and recent usage | | orth api list | List available APIs | | orth api search <query> | Natural-language API search | | orth api show <slug> [path] | Show endpoints / endpoint details (alias: info) | | orth api run <slug> <path> | Call an endpoint | | orth api code <slug> <path> | Generate integration code | | orth api request <docsUrl> | Request an API to be added | | orth skills … | Browse, install, author, and publish skills |

Shorthand aliases for the most common commands:

orth search <query>       # → orth api search
orth run <slug> <path>    # → orth api run
orth code <slug> <path>   # → orth api code

Run orth <command> --help for the full options on any command.

run options

| Flag | Description | | --- | --- | | -X, --method <method> | HTTP method (default GET) | | -q, --query <k=v...> | Query params (repeatable, or one a=1&b=2 string) | | -b, --body <json> / -d, --data <json> | JSON request body | | -o, --output <file> | Save the response to a file (auto-detects binary) | | --raw | Print raw JSON (ideal for piping) | | --dry-run | Estimate the cost without executing |

Configuration

| Environment variable | Purpose | | --- | --- | | ORTHOGONAL_API_KEY | API key; overrides the stored credential (use in CI) | | ORTH_API_URL | Override the API base URL (advanced) |

Credentials from orth login are stored in your OS user-config directory (managed automatically); use orth logout to remove them.

Programmatic Use

Building an application instead of scripting the terminal? Use one of the official SDKs:

• @orth/sdk — TypeScript/JavaScript (npm install @orth/sdk)
• orth — Python (pip install orth)

Development

git clone https://github.com/orthogonal-sh/cli.git
cd cli
npm install

npm run build      # compile TypeScript to dist/
npm run dev        # compile in watch mode
npm test           # run the test suite (vitest)
npm start          # run the built CLI

Contributions are welcome — please open an issue or a pull request.

License

MIT © Orthogonal