CLI Reference
Ante can run as an interactive TUI, a one-shot headless command, a long-lived protocol server, or a channel gateway.
ante [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]
Commands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
ante | Start the interactive TUI. If -p / --prompt is provided, run in headless mode instead. |
ante auth | Manage provider sign-in without starting an agent session. |
ante serve | Run a long-lived JSONL or WebSocket protocol server. |
ante gateway | Run the Slack / Discord channel gateway. |
ante update | Check for the latest Ante release and install it if available. |
ante rage | Collect a redacted bug-report bundle (logs + environment) to share with the Ante team. |
ante catalog | Print the loaded provider/model catalog as JSON. |
ante doctor | Run a boot-time self-check and report startup phase timings. |
ante
ante [OPTIONS]
Without --prompt, Ante starts the interactive TUI. With --prompt, Ante runs one headless task and exits.
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
-m, --model <MODEL> | Override the default model name. |
--provider <PROVIDER> | Override the API provider by catalog provider name. |
--effort <LEVEL> | Override the model's effort level for this run: min, low, medium, high, xhigh, or max. |
--yolo | Skip tool approval prompts for the session. |
--permission-mode <MODE> | Override the permission mode for this run: strict, auto, or yolo. Conflicts with --yolo. |
--system-prompt <PROMPT> | Replace the default system prompt entirely. Conflicts with --system-prompt-file. |
--system-prompt-file <PATH> | Read the replacement system prompt from a UTF-8 file. Conflicts with --system-prompt. |
--append-system-prompt <TEXT> | Append content to the default system prompt. |
--short-prompt | Use the compact prompt set for this run: a condensed system prompt and shorter built-in tool descriptions. Persist the default with the short_prompt setting. |
--enable-auto-memory | Enable auto-memory for this run. Conflicts with --disable-auto-memory. |
--disable-auto-memory | Disable auto-memory for this run. Conflicts with --enable-auto-memory. |
--tools <TOOLS>... | Replace the default tool set with exactly these tools. Values are space-separated. Deprecated alias: --allowed-tools still works but prints a warning. |
--include-tools <TOOLS>... | Add tools on top of the default set, or on top of the --tools base set. Values are space-separated. |
--exclude-tools <TOOLS>... | Remove tools from the session after --tools and --include-tools are applied. Values are space-separated. Deprecated alias: --disallowed-tools still works but prints a warning. |
--output-format <FORMAT> | Headless output format: json, human, or minimal. Defaults to minimal. |
-p, --prompt <PROMPT> | Prompt to run in headless mode. Also supports stdin when piped. |
--check | Run a verification pass after the headless task completes. |
-r, --resume <SESSION_ID> | Resume a previous session by ID. |
--no-session-save | Do not save the session transcript or resumable snapshot. Conflicts with --resume. |
--offline-model <PATH> | Path to a local GGUF model file for offline inference. |
-h, --help | Print command help. |
-V, --version | Print the Ante version. |
Examples
ante
ante -p "explain what this project does"
git diff | ante -p "review this diff for bugs"
ante --provider openai --model gpt-5.6-sol -p "refactor the database module"
ante --effort max -p "find the race condition in the scheduler"
ante --resume ses_01ARZ3NDEKTSV4RRFFQ69G5FAV -p "now add tests"
ante -p "summarize this repo" --enable-auto-memory
ante auth
ante auth login [PROVIDER] [OPTIONS]
Sign in to an OAuth provider without starting a TUI session. Today the supported provider is antix, and it is the default when [PROVIDER] is omitted.
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
--force | Re-run browser sign-in even when stored credentials already exist. |
--no-browser | Print the authorization URL instead of opening a browser. |
-h, --help | Print command help. |
Examples
ante auth login
ante auth login antix --force
ante auth login --no-browser
ante serve
ante serve [OPTIONS]
Server mode exposes the Ante protocol over stdin/stdout by default, or over WebSocket when --ws is provided.
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
--stdio | Serve the JSONL protocol over stdin/stdout. This is the default transport. |
--ws <ADDR> | Serve the protocol over WebSocket on the given socket address. Conflicts with --stdio. |
--offline-model <PATH> | Load a local GGUF model at startup for offline mode. |
-h, --help | Print command help. |
serve is session-agnostic, so it does not accept the session flags (--model, --provider, --yolo, --system-prompt, --tools, …). The connecting client configures those per session over the protocol.
Examples
ante serve
ante serve --ws 127.0.0.1:8080
ante gateway
ante gateway [OPTIONS]
Gateway mode connects Ante to Slack, Discord, or both using the channels config file.
| Flag | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
--config <PATH> | ~/.ante/channels.json | Path to the channels configuration file. |
--model <MODEL> | local | Model to use for agent sessions. |
--provider <PROVIDER> | local | Provider to use for agent sessions. |
--output-format <FORMAT> | minimal | Gateway stdout format: json, human, or minimal. |
--offline-model <PATH> | - | Load a local GGUF model for all gateway conversations. |
-h, --help | - | Print command help. |
Examples
ante gateway
ante gateway --provider anthropic --model claude-sonnet-4-6
ante gateway --config ./channels.json --output-format human
ante update
ante update [OPTIONS] [CHANNEL]
The update command checks for a newer Ante release and installs it when one is available. Without arguments, it follows the channel stored in ~/.ante/settings.json (defaults to stable). Passing a channel — either as a positional argument or via --channel — overrides the tracked channel for this run only. See Update & Channels for the full list of channels.
| Argument | Description |
|---|---|
[CHANNEL] | Release channel to update from (stable or nightly). latest is accepted as a legacy alias for stable. Conflicts with --channel and --version. |
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
--channel <CHANNEL> | Release channel to update from. Equivalent to the positional form. |
--version <VERSION> | Install an exact release instead of the channel's newest release. Accepts values with or without a leading v, such as v0.preview.33 or 0.preview.33. Conflicts with channel arguments. |
-h, --help | Print command help. |
Examples
ante update
ante update nightly
ante update --channel stable
ante update --version v0.preview.33
ante rage
ante rage [OPTIONS]
When something goes wrong, ante rage gathers the context the Ante team needs to investigate into a single shareable archive that you can attach to a GitHub issue. By default it writes ./ante-rage-<timestamp>.tar.gz and prints a short summary. Nothing is uploaded — the bundle stays local until you share it.
Secrets are redacted before anything is written. API keys and OAuth tokens are reported only as present/absent (never their values), credentials embedded in URLs and known token shapes are masked, conversation transcripts and system prompts are excluded, and ~/.ante/auth/*.json and channels.json are never included.
The archive contains:
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
report.md | Ante version, OS/architecture, shell, git branch, the resolved model/provider, a provider authentication table (present/absent), and a redaction notice. |
env.txt | Ante-relevant environment variables. Safe values are shown verbatim; known secrets appear as <SET> / <UNSET> only. |
settings.redacted.json | ~/.ante/settings.json with secrets removed (MCP server credentials are stripped). |
catalog.redacted.json | ~/.ante/catalog.json with secrets removed, included only when a custom catalog exists. |
logs/ | Recent application and crash logs, filtered and scrubbed. DEBUG/TRACE lines are dropped so request bodies never enter the bundle. |
By default the newest logs are collected, up to 10 files or 10 MB (crash logs are always prioritized). Use --since to collect everything within a time window instead.
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
--output <PATH> | Write the bundle to this path instead of ./ante-rage-<timestamp>.tar.gz. |
--no-compress | Leave the staging folder uncompressed instead of producing a .tar.gz. |
--verbose-logs | Also include DEBUG/TRACE log lines. Conversation transcripts and system prompts are still excluded. |
--since <DURATION> | Collect every log modified within the window, ignoring the file-count and size limits. Accepts <n>d, <n>h, <n>m, or a bare number of days (for example 7d, 48h, 90m, 2). |
-h, --help | Print command help. |
Examples
ante rage
ante rage --output ./ante-bug.tar.gz
ante rage --since 7d
ante rage --no-compress
ante catalog
ante catalog
Print the merged provider/model catalog (built-in presets plus ~/.ante/catalog.json) to stdout as JSON, in the same schema the catalog file uses. Warnings for skipped catalog entries go to stderr, so stdout stays a clean JSON document that pipes into jq. See the Catalog Reference for the schema.
Examples
ante catalog
ante catalog | jq '.providers | keys'
ante doctor
ante doctor
Boot the same runtime a real launch uses — load the merged catalog, start a daemon session, and render the first TUI frame — then print a readiness report with per-phase timings. Use it to confirm Ante is installed and configured correctly, or as a CI smoke test ("does Ante boot, does the first frame render").
It needs no TTY and no API key: MCP warm-up is skipped and the session reaches readiness from the catalog alone. The report lists three checks — catalog (provider/model counts), session (the resolved provider/model), and first frame (the headless render) — followed by a total. Warnings (such as no authenticated provider, a skipped catalog entry, or a settings.json parse notice) are listed below the table without failing the check. doctor exits non-zero if any hard check fails, so it works in scripts.
Examples
ante doctor
ante doctor || echo "ante is not healthy"
Output Formats
| Format | Description |
|---|---|
minimal | Print agent messages, info, and errors only. |
human | Print all events in a human-readable format. |
json | Print events as JSON lines for machine processing. |