cognitum (temporary demo launcher)

Not the final package. A throwaway, single-file demo of the MetaHarness install + status-line + auth surface, published under the cognitum npm name so people can try it with one command before the final name/registry is chosen (ADR-114). The real product ships as metaharness.

Try it

npx cognitum metaharness                        # just run it — first launch sets up, then opens Claude Code
npx cognitum metaharness -- "explain this repo" # …or launch straight into a prompt
npx cognitum metaharness login                  # sign in (OAuth by default) to route through Cognitum
npx cognitum metaharness run --router           # interactive Claude, best model per task
npx cognitum metaharness statusline install     # also show the status line in plain Claude sessions

The leading metaharness is optional — npx cognitum init works too.

Signing in

login uses OAuth by default, and a plain login is now enough for cloud inference — run --cloud authenticates with the OAuth token, no pasted key.

OAuth sign-in is not yet open to external accounts. While Cognitum is pre-launch, sign-in is restricted to @cognitum.one addresses; anything else is rejected at the identity provider. If you don't have one, use a Cognitum API key instead:

npx cognitum metaharness login --api-key cog_…

This restriction is server-side and lifts at launch — no new version of this package is needed.

Paid capabilities (pro, cloud brains) need a cog_ key regardless of how you signed in: the OAuth inference scope grants completions only.

Open Claude Code after init and you'll see the status line: session context plus a rotating Cognitum promo row. Turn the row off with METAHARNESS_FUNNEL=0 or npx cognitum metaharness statusline off.

Routing (automatic by default)

run uses the auto plane: your own Claude subscription when you're logged in (passthrough), and Cognitum cloud (your cog_ key) when you're not — no proxy, no install (ADR-118). Force a plane with --passthrough / --cloud. Note auto only picks cloud on a stored cog_ key — an OAuth-only login resolves to passthrough, so that signing in never silently moves your billing to Cognitum. Ask for cloud explicitly with --cloud.

--router — best model per task

npx cognitum metaharness run --router                 # interactive session
npx cognitum metaharness run --router -- -p "hi"      # one prompt

--router is sugar for --cloud --tier auto: every prompt goes to Cognitum, where meta-llm's per-prompt scorer picks the model that fits the task (cheap models for easy prompts, frontier models for hard ones). It prints a banner saying so, because this inference bills to Cognitum, not to your own Claude subscription — the flag is the consent.

It's a default, not a lock: --router --tier low pins cognitum-low (and the banner says so). Because --router means "route through Cognitum," it can't be combined with --passthrough or --local. The optional local meta-proxy plane (--local) auto-provisions a signed binary via proxy install (ADR-117); it's not needed for the default experience.

What's included

init, statusline, login / logout / whoami, run, proxy (incl. install), usage, config, doctor.

brain, pro, mcp, route, and hosts are not in this slim demo (they carry a native vector-engine dependency); they ship in the full metaharness CLI.

Build / publish (maintainers)

The bundle is generated from the CLI source — it is not committed.

pnpm -C packages/cognitum-demo run bundle     # → packages/cognitum-demo/cognitum.cjs
pnpm -C packages/cognitum-demo run release    # npm publish --tag latest (prepublishOnly re-bundles)

Publish via run release, not npm publish directly. cognitum is always a prerelease (0.0.1-demo.N), and the tag is load-bearing: npx cognitum resolves the latest dist-tag, so --tag demo would publish successfully and change nothing for users — a silent no-op release. A bare npm publish at least fails loudly; that one doesn't, so prepublishOnly rejects any tag but latest.