CLI reference

The tau command launches the interactive TUI by default; subcommands and flags cover everything else.

tau [OPTIONS] [PROMPT] [COMMAND] [ARGS]

Commands

Command	What it does
`tau`	Open the interactive TUI
`tau "<prompt>"`	Open the TUI with an initial prompt
`tau sessions`	List indexed sessions (id, title, model, cwd)
`tau export <ref> [dest] [--format html\|jsonl]`	Export a session id or JSONL path (HTML default)
`tau providers`	List configured providers and how each authenticates
`tau [setup options] setup`	Create/update an OpenAI-compatible provider

Flag	Description
`-p, --prompt TEXT`	Run this prompt in non-interactive print mode
`-m, --model TEXT`	Model to request from the provider
`--provider TEXT`	Configured provider name to use
`--cwd PATH`	Working directory for the built-in tools
`-o, --output [text\|json\|transcript]`	Output mode for print mode (default `text`)
`--resume TEXT`	Resume a session id in the TUI
`--new-session`	Start a new session instead of resuming the default
`--auto-compact-threshold INT`	Auto-compact above this rough token estimate
`--version`	Print the version and exit

Tau’s setup mode registers an OpenAI-compatible provider. Put these flags before the final setup argument:

Flag	Default	Description
`--provider TEXT`	`openai`	Provider name to create/update
`--model TEXT`	default model	Default model for the provider
`--base-url TEXT`	OpenAI URL	OpenAI-compatible base URL
`--api-key-env TEXT`	`OPENAI_API_KEY`	Env var holding the API key
`--timeout-seconds FLOAT`	`60.0`	HTTP timeout
`--max-retries INT`	`2`	Retry count for transient failures
`--max-retry-delay-seconds FLOAT`	`1.0`	Delay between retries
`--set-default / --no-set-default`	set-default	Make this the default provider

Example:

tau --provider local \
  --base-url http://localhost:11434/v1 \
  --api-key-env LOCAL_API_KEY \
  --model qwen \
  setup