ICOA CLI

The AI-native competition runtime of the International Cyber Olympiad in AI (ICOA).

ICOA CLI is a standardized terminal environment for learning, practising, and competing in AI and cybersecurity — and for assessing how well humans and AI work together. Students reason, collaborate with an AI assistant, call real tools, read output, debug, manage a token budget, and ship an answer: the same loop a modern AI agent runs, with a human in command.

The npm package is the distribution layer. Competitions, exams, scoring, curriculum content, and AI access are delivered by the ICOA cloud.

Install

One line, no admin / sudo, installs Node.js 22 if you don't have it:

# macOS · Ubuntu · Chromebook (Linux) · WSL2
curl -fsSL https://practice.icoa2026.au/assets/translations/install.sh | bash

# Windows 10/11 — paste in PowerShell: sets up WSL2 + Ubuntu (reuses 22.04/24.04, else installs 24.04) + icoa inside it
# (one admin approval + one restart on a PC that never had WSL; it resumes by itself after the reboot and falls back
#  to a direct Ubuntu rootfs import + China-friendly mirrors where the Store / nodejs.org is slow or blocked)
irm https://practice.icoa2026.au/assets/translations/install.ps1 | iex

If that line answers Unable to connect to the remote server (a momentary network hiccup - it happened on a Sydney classroom PC), press the up arrow and Enter to run it again, or paste this self-retrying form instead:

1..3 | % { try { irm https://practice.icoa2026.au/assets/translations/install.ps1 | iex; break } catch { Start-Sleep 3 } }

Already have Node.js 22+? Then simply:

npm install -g icoa-cli
icoa

Runs in any standard terminal on macOS, Linux, Windows (WSL2 + Windows Terminal; a no-WSL fallback install-native.ps1 exists for locked-down PCs), and ChromeOS (Crostini).

What's inside

• Learn — interactive curriculum tracks (AI, Python, CTF, physics, chemistry, biology, and more), card-based with checkpoints and phase gates
• Practice arenas — server-judged coding and ML challenges with honors boards
• Exams — reproducible, server-authoritative assessment with per-token auditability
• Competitions — official ICOA events and accredited national selections
• AI assistance — a built-in AI tutor with token budgeting, designed for human–AI collaboration under assessment conditions

Access to curricula, exams, and competitions is token-based; tokens are issued by ICOA and its accredited national organizers.

License

ICOA CLI is source-available under the Business Source License 1.1 (BUSL-1.1). In short:

• Free for personal learning, non-commercial academic research, classroom teaching, ICOA-accredited national selection events, and contributions back to the project.
• Commercial license required for paid training, commercial competitions, enterprise deployment, white-label distribution, hosting/SaaS, resale, and commercial certification services — contact [email protected].
• Delayed open source — each released version converts to the Apache License 2.0 four years after its release.

See LICENSE for the exact terms. The license covers this client software only; ICOA cloud services, question banks, exam materials, and the ICOA marks are licensed separately.

Governance

• Copyright © 2026 ASRA — Australia STEM and Robotics Advancement Association Inc (Licensor)
• Developed by Charlie Zhu
• Education & cloud operations: NewAI Classes
• Commercial licensing and partnerships: [email protected]