zelari-code

v1.13.0

Published

a day ago

Zelari Code — AI Council coding agent CLI. Multi-agent orchestration (Caronte, Nettuno, Gerione, Plutone, Minosse, Lucifero) with slash commands, provider-agnostic LLM streaming, and self-update.

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cli ai agent council coding llm zelari anathema

Zelari Code

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     Z E L A R I   C O D E
          N-THEM Studio

AI Council coding agent CLI — multi-agent orchestration with slash commands, provider-agnostic LLM streaming, and self-update.

Version Node

📖 Guida completa all'uso (IT) — installazione, TUI, comandi slash, council, skills, workspace, headless, MCP.

Zelari Code is a standalone CLI extracted from AnathemaBrain. It brings the multi-agent council (Caronte, Nettuno, Gerione, Plutone, Minosse, Lucifero) directly into your terminal with a rich TUI (Ink + React), slash command system, and provider-agnostic LLM streaming (OpenAI-compatible, xAI Grok with OAuth, GLM/Z.AI).

Upgrading from ≤ 0.4.x? See MIGRATION.md — the internal src/main/core/, src/agents/, src/shared/, src/types/ paths no longer exist. The published core package is @zelari/core (MIT). 9 subpath exports.

Prerequisites

| Requirement | Version | Notes | |---|---|---| | Node.js | ≥ 20 LTS | Earlier versions lack stable fetch, AbortController.timeout, and node:test. Works on 20.x and 22.x. | | npm | ≥ 10 | Ships with Node 20 LTS; tested with npm 10 and 11. | | OS | Linux, macOS, Windows 10/11 | Tested on Pop!_OS 24.04, macOS 15, Windows 11. Windows requires Git Bash (auto-detected). | | Disk | ~50 MB for the CLI + @zelari/core | Models are not bundled — provider APIs are remote. | | Account + API key | 1 of: xAI Grok, OpenAI-compatible, GLM/Z.AI, MiniMax, DeepSeek | OAuth Grok supported via /login grok. |

Optional (for v1.3.0 advanced tools)

These are opt-in — the CLI runs fine without them. The agent auto-skips a tool if its dependency is missing.

| Tool group | Dependency | Used by | |---|---|---| | lsp_* | Language server on PATH (e.g. typescript-language-server, pyright-langserver) + Node/Python LSP client libs | lsp_definition, lsp_references, lsp_hover, lsp_symbols, lsp_rename | | ast_* | (none) | ast_outline, ast_find_symbol — TypeScript Compiler API, no LSP needed | | semantic_search | Local embedding model (default Xenova/all-MiniLM-L6-v2 via @xenova/transformers, downloads on first use) | semantic_search, /index | | browser_check | Playwright (npx playwright install chromium once, ~150 MB) | browser_check | | diagnostics loop | eslint and/or ruff on PATH (project-local preferred) | post-edit compile/lint feedback |

Disable any tool group: set ZELARI_LSP=0, ZELARI_AST=0, ZELARI_SEMANTIC=0, ZELARI_BROWSER=0, ZELARI_DIAGNOSTICS=0.

Install

npm install -g zelari-code
zelari-code

Optional: Zelari Desktop (Tauri)

An installable GUI shell lives in apps/desktop/. It does not replace the CLI — it streams zelari-code --headless into a modern chat UI. GitHub Releases attach platform installers on each v* tag.

Installer ≠ CLI. Downloading Desktop from GitHub does not install or upgrade the global zelari-code package. Use npm i -g zelari-code (or Desktop → Settings → Update CLI). First launch shows a Setup guide when Node/CLI is missing.

Desktop highlights (v1.12+): Mode / Phase / Provider bar · Files|Git project panel · Settings (provider keys, App updates, Update CLI, MCP Extensions, SSH Connections) · multi-turn chat history · password/agent/key SSH targets for deploy/monitor (ssh_status / ssh_run).

npm run build                 # CLI side-car
npm run desktop:install
npm run desktop:dev           # Tauri dev window
# npm run desktop:build       # MSI / NSIS / DMG / AppImage

See apps/desktop/README.md and docs/GUIDA.md (Desktop, MCP, SSH). Requires Rust + Node ≥ 20.

Prerequisites:

Node.js ≥ 20 — required. Without it the agent cannot run npm/tsc/builds, so zelari-code refuses to boot.
Git — recommended. Without it, /diff, /undo and the git sidebar are disabled. Install from https://git-scm.com.
Git Bash (Windows only) — recommended. The agent's bash tool needs real POSIX semantics (ls, which, $VAR, &&). Ships with Git for Windows.

After install, verify your environment:

zelari-code --doctor   # checks shim, bundle, PATH, node/git/bash in the agent shell

Why --doctor matters on Windows: the agent runs commands through Git Bash, which inherits a different PATH than the Node process. Node can be visible to PowerShell yet invisible to Git Bash (typical when Node was installed for "current user" only). --doctor's node (agent shell) row catches this; the boot-time preflight (runPreflight) blocks the launch with an actionable message instead of letting the agent fail mid-task.

`zelari-code: command not found` (Windows)

After npm install -g, the zelari-code command may not be on your PATH. Fix:

PowerShell (run as admin, then restart your terminal):

$npmPrefix = npm config get prefix
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("Path", $env:Path + ";$npmPrefix", "User")

Git Bash / WSL:

echo 'export PATH="$(npm config get prefix):$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Verify the fix: where zelari-code (CMD) or which zelari-code (Bash) should print a path.

Node visible to PowerShell but not to Git Bash? This is the dual-PATH problem: Node installed for "current user" only reaches the user shell, while Git Bash inherits the system Path. Fix: reinstall Node with "Add to PATH for all users", or add C:\Program Files\nodejs\ to the System Path (not User). Confirm with zelari-code --doctor — the node (agent shell) row must read OK.

First Run

The first time you run zelari-code (or whenever your provider config is missing), the CLI launches a 5-step onboarding wizard instead of the regular TUI:

╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ zelari-code v1.3.0 — first-time setup    │
│ 1/welcome  2/provider  3/model  4/apikey  5/...│
│                                                 │
│ Welcome! Let's get you coding in under 2 min.   │
│ Press [Enter] to continue, [Q] to quit.         │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

The wizard walks you through:

Welcome — overview + how to quit.
Provider — pick from grok, minimax, glm, deepseek, openai-compatible (↑/↓ + Enter).
Model — type a model name or accept the default (Enter).
API key — choose env (use GROK_API_KEY etc.), keystore (save locally), or skip (set later via /login).
Confirm — review + Enter to commit.

When you press Enter on confirm, the wizard writes ~/.tmp/zelari-code/provider.json (and keys.json if you chose keystore), shows a brief "✓ Setup complete!" banner, then transparently transitions into the regular TUI — no need to re-launch.

Skipping / re-running

zelari-code --no-wizard            # skip wizard even on first run
zelari-code --reset-config         # force re-run wizard (clears provider.json)
ZELARI_NO_WIZARD=1 zelari-code     # env equivalent of --no-wizard
zelari-code --version              # print version + exit (no TUI)
zelari-code --help                 # print help + exit (no TUI)

The wizard re-runs automatically if provider.json is missing on the next launch.

Quick Start

# Set your OpenAI-compatible API key (OpenAI, Together, Groq, custom endpoint, etc.)
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

# Or use Grok via OAuth (Device Authorization Grant — RFC 8628)
zelari-code
# Inside the TUI: /login grok
# → A code + verification URL appears; open the URL, enter the code, authorize.

# Or use GLM/Z.AI
export GLM_API_KEY=...

# Run zelari-code from any directory
zelari-code

Slash Commands

Full reference: docs/GUIDA.md (all flags, examples, skill IDs).

| Command | Description | |---|---| | /help | List all commands + loaded skills | | /exit | Exit the CLI | | /login <provider> [key] | Set API key; /login grok starts OAuth | | /provider, /provider <id> | Show / switch LLM provider | | /provider custom <url> | Self-hosted endpoint (Ollama, LM Studio, …) | | /model <name>, /models | Set model / list discovered models | | /skill <id> [input] | Invoke a coding skill (23 built-in + SKILL.md) | | /skill-stats [id] | Skill invocation stats | | /skill-compare <id1> <id2> | Compare two skills' stats | | /council <input> | Run the 6-member council pipeline | | /zelari <input> | Run an autonomous mission — multi-run council until the MVP slice is complete | | /council-feedback <id> <1-5> | Rate a council member | | /promote-member <id> | Promote a council member to a skill | | /sessions, /resume <id>, /new | Session management | | /branch <name>, /branches, /checkout <name> | Session branches | | /compact, /clear | Compact / clear transcript | | /diff [--staged], /undo --yes | Git diff / revert (destructive) | | /steer <text>, /steer --interrupt <text> | Queue follow-up during a run | | /workspace … | .zelari/ artifacts + AGENTS.MD | | /update, /update --yes | Check / install CLI updates | | /mode [agent\|council\|zelari] | Switch dispatch mode (shift+tab fallback) | | /checkpoint [label] | Snapshot the working tree (rollback target) | | /rollback [id\|latest] | Restore a checkpoint (revert / restore files atomically) | | /index | Build / refresh the semantic search index |

TUI: shift+tab cycles agent → council → zelari mode for free-form prompts (with terminal-fallback hardening since v1.3.0). The equivalent command /mode [agent|council|zelari] works in any terminal.

Headless Mode

Run a single task without the TUI (CI/scripts/Desktop):

zelari-code --headless --task "Explain src/cli/main.ts" --output plain
zelari-code --headless --task "Design a REST API" --council --output json
zelari-code --headless --mode agent --phase plan --task "Outline the change"

Useful flags: --mode agent|council|zelari, --phase plan|build, --provider, --model, --history-file (multi-turn Desktop). See docs/GUIDA.md for exit codes and config helpers (--print-config, MCP, SSH).

Self-Update

Zelari Code includes a built-in update mechanism:

# Inside the TUI:
/update          # check for updates (prints current vs latest)
/update --yes    # apply update (runs npm install -g zelari-code@latest)

On startup, the CLI silently checks the npm registry. If a newer version is available, it prints a one-line hint to stderr.

Disable auto-check: ANATHEMA_DEV=1 zelari-code

Features

🤖 Multi-agent council — 6 roles (Caronte, Nettuno, Gerione, Plutone, Minosse, Lucifero) with feedback loops and member promotion
⚡ Zelari-mode — autonomous multi-run missions: a free-form prompt is turned into a structured mission brief, then the council loops (design → implementation) until the MVP slice's completion.ok is green or the iteration budget runs out
🧠 Project memory — zero-dependency file-based recall (.zelari/memory/), fed into the council as RAG context between mission slices (opt-out with ZELARI_MEMORY=0)
⇧⇥ Agent/council/zelari mode switch — shift+tab cycles free-form prompts between the single agent, the full council pipeline, and an autonomous mission (mode shown in the status line)
🎨 Rich TUI — Ink + React: native-scrollback chat stream, input bar with status line below it (mode · provider · model · session · cwd · execution timer)
🗂️ Live git sidebar — right-hand panel with the N-THEM emblem and the working-tree changes (+added/-removed per file, refreshed every 4s; auto-hidden on narrow terminals)
⏱️ Execution timer — elapsed time of the in-flight turn in the status line (⏱ 12s), frozen as last 34s when the run completes
🧠 Provider-agnostic — OpenAI-compatible APIs (OpenAI, Together, Groq, custom), xAI Grok with OAuth refresh, GLM/Z.AI
🛠️ Built-in tools — filesystem (read/write/edit), shell (bash), search (grep), web fetch/search
🧠 LSP code intelligence (lsp_* tools) — go-to-definition, find references, hover type, document symbols, rename symbol via real language servers (tsserver, pyright, …)
🌲 AST structural tools (ast_* tools) — symbol outline + find-by-name via the TypeScript compiler API, no language server needed
🔎 Semantic search (semantic_search + /index) — concept-level code search via embeddings, local-first
🌐 Browser verification (browser_check) — headless browser with click/fill/goto/wait actions, console + network + screenshot capture for visual verification of web work
🔁 Post-edit diagnostics loop — after every edit_file/write_file the harness runs project lint/compile (eslint, ruff, LSP-pluggable) and surfaces the errors to the model in the same turn (opt out: ZELARI_DIAGNOSTICS=0)
💾 Prompt-cache accounting — tracks prompt-cache hit rate per provider/model and surfaces it in the status bar (cache 73%) so you can see when a session is amortizing its prefix
🧷 Workspace checkpoints — /checkpoint [label] + /rollback [id|latest] use git plumbing to snapshot the working tree (tracked + untracked) and restore it atomically; every zelari-mode mission takes one before starting
🤝 Sub-agent delegation (task tool) — delegate a focused read-only research sub-task to an isolated sub-agent with its own fresh context, max 12 tool turns, no write/bash/recursion
📚 23 coding skills (+ user SKILL.md from .zelari/skills/, .claude/skills/, …)
🔄 Cross-provider failover — automatic retry with provider swap on transient errors
📊 Metrics + skill history — fire-and-forget logging to ~/.tmp/zelari-code/
🗜️ Session management — JSONL transcripts, resume across restarts, compaction
🌿 Branch isolation — session snapshots per branch
🔌 MCP — external MCP servers via .zelari/mcp.json or ~/.zelari-code/mcp.json; Desktop Extensions store for one-click install
🔐 SSH targets — configure hosts for deploy/monitor (password, agent, or key); tools ssh_status / ssh_run with allowlist; ZELARI_SSH=0 kill switch
🖥️ Zelari Desktop — Tauri shell with chat UI, project tree, Settings, dual updates (app vs npm CLI)
🆕 Self-update — /update slash command + silent registry check on startup

Architecture

zelari-code (CLI, proprietary)
├── src/cli/                  # Ink TUI, provider config, workspace, wizard, MCP
│   ├── components/           # ChatStream, InputBar, Sidebar, StatusBar, …
│   ├── slashHandlers/        # /provider, /workspace, /update, …
│   └── workspace/            # .zelari/ persistence + AGENTS.MD curation
└── packages/core/            # @zelari/core (MIT, npm)
    ├── core/                 # AgentHarness — provider-neutral agent loop
    ├── agents/               # Council API, roles, 23 skills, tool schemas
    ├── harness/tools/        # Tool registry + filesystem/shell/search/web
    ├── events/               # BrainEvent contract
    └── council/              # Run mode, tier banners

AgentHarness takes (model, provider, messages, tools) + a streaming function and yields AsyncIterable<BrainEvent>. The CLI subscribes and renders via eventsToMessages(). See MIGRATION.md for the v0.5+ package boundary.

Environment Variables

| Variable | Description | |---|---| | OPENAI_API_KEY | OpenAI API key | | OPENAI_MODEL | Default model (default: grok-4) | | OPENAI_BASE_URL | Custom OpenAI-compatible endpoint | | GLM_API_KEY | GLM/Z.AI API key | | GROK_API_KEY | xAI Grok API key (alternative to OAuth) | | DEEPSEEK_API_KEY | DeepSeek API key (models auto-discovered; default deepseek-v4-pro) | | MINIMAX_API_KEY | MiniMax API key | | ANATHEMA_DEV=1 | Disable silent update check on startup | | ZELARI_NO_WIZARD=1 | Skip first-run wizard | | ZELARI_NO_SHIM_REPAIR=1 | Disable auto-repair of a missing Windows bin shim on install | | ZELARI_COUNCIL_TIER=lite | Council with 3 members instead of 6 | | ZELARI_MCP=0 | Disable MCP servers | | ZELARI_SSH=0 | Disable SSH tools / targets | | ZELARI_CLI_PATH | Desktop: path to local bin/zelari-code.js monorepo entry | | ZELARI_NO_PATH_REPAIR=1 | Windows: skip npm-prefix PATH auto-repair | | ANATHEMA_FAILOVER=0 | Disable cross-provider failover | | ZELARI_MEMORY=0 | Disable the file-based project memory (.zelari/memory/) | | ZELARI_MISSION_AUTO=1 | Auto-start Zelari missions (skip the brief confirmation) | | ZELARI_MISSION_MAX_ITER | Max Zelari mission iterations (default 10) | | ZELARI_MODE_MAX_TOOLS_LUCIFER | Chairman (Lucifero) tool budget in zelari-mode (default 30) | | ZELARI_DIAGNOSTICS=0 | Disable the post-edit compiler/lint diagnostics loop | | ZELARI_DIAGNOSTICS_TIMEOUT_MS | Timeout of the diagnostics loop (default 5000) | | ZELARI_AST=0 | Disable AST structural tools (ast_*) | | ZELARI_SEMANTIC=0 | Disable semantic search + /index | | ZELARI_SEMANTIC_FILE | Override the embeddings store path | | ZELARI_EMBED_MODEL | Embedding model id (default Xenova/all-MiniLM-L6-v2) | | ZELARI_BROWSER=0 | Disable browser_check | | ZELARI_LSP=0 | Disable LSP tools (lsp_*) | | ZELARI_CHECKPOINT=0 | Disable automatic workspace checkpoints in zelari-mode | | ZELARI_TOOL_OUTPUT_LINES | Lines of tool output shown in the TUI (default 8) |

See docs/GUIDA.md for the full list.

Council Workspace

The CLI persists council output (decisions, risks, docs, plan, reviews) into a project-local .zelari/ directory and auto-curates an AGENTS.MD at the project root.

Layout

.zelari/                      # auto-gitignored, per-project
├── plan.md                   # phases / tasks / milestones (Markdown + YAML frontmatter)
├── risks.md                  # risk register (live, ordered by severity)
├── decisions/                # ADRs (Architecture Decision Records) — 001-<slug>.md
├── reviews/                  # Minosse verdict per council run
└── docs/                     # doc drafts produced by the council
AGENTS.MD                     # committed at project root, auto-curated from .zelari/

Slash commands

| Command | Effect | | --- | --- | | /workspace | List all artifacts + usage hint | | /workspace show plan | Render .zelari/plan.md | | /workspace show decisions | List all ADRs (id, status, title) | | /workspace show risks | Render .zelari/risks.md | | /workspace show agents | Render AGENTS.MD (project root) | | /workspace show docs | List .zelari/docs/ drafts | | /workspace sync | Re-run AGENTS.MD auto-curation (idempotent — no-op if unchanged) | | /workspace reset --yes | Delete .zelari/ (destructive — requires confirmation) |

AGENTS.MD format

AGENTS.MD is partitioned into:

Manual blocks (free-form, preserved verbatim across updates) — write anything you want here.
Auto-managed sections delimited by  /  markers — overwritten each sync.

Auto-managed sections:

tech-stack — languages, frameworks, build tools (derived from package.json)
decisions — accepted ADRs (newest first, capped)
conventions — code conventions observed in source tree
build — build/test/lint commands
open-questions — info-level risks + unsolved questions

Set ZELARI_AGENTS_MD=0 to disable AGENTS.MD auto-curation.

Storage layout internals

Frontmatter: subset YAML (scalars, flow/sequence/block-sequence arrays, flow/block maps) — no external deps.
Concurrency: per-key mutex (filesystem writes are serialized per artifact).
Idempotency: hash comparison — AGENTS.MD write is skipped when no section changed (clean git diff).

See docs/plans/2026-07-01-council-workspace-cli-stubs.md for the full schema.

Documentation

| Doc | Description | |---|---| | docs/GUIDA.md | Guida utente completa (IT) | | docs/TOOLS.md | Tool builtin, workspace, MCP | | MIGRATION.md | Upgrade from ≤ 0.4.x | | docs/decisions/ | ADRs (monorepo, npm publish, API policy) |

Development

git clone https://github.com/N-THEM-Studio/zelari-code.git
cd zelari-code
npm install
npm run build:cli
npm link
zelari-code

Run tests

npm test

Typecheck

npm run typecheck

Related Projects

AnathemaBrain — the Electron desktop GUI that shares the agent runtime + council system with this CLI
Zelari Coder originated as the npm run coder script inside AnathemaBrain
@zelari/core on npm — reusable agent runtime (MIT)