open-multi-agent/docs/cli.md

Command-line interface (oma)

The package ships a small binary oma that exposes the same primitives as the TypeScript API: runTeam, runTasks, single-run dashboard export, plus a static provider reference. It is meant for shell scripts and CI (JSON on stdout, stable exit codes).

It does not provide an interactive REPL, working-directory injection into tools, human approval gates, or session persistence. Those stay in application code.

Installation and invocation

After installing the package, the binary is on PATH when using npx or a local node_modules/.bin:

npm install @open-multi-agent/core
npx oma help

From a clone of the repository you need a build first:

npm run build
node packages/core/dist/cli/oma.js help

Set the usual provider API keys in the environment (see README); the CLI does not read secrets from flags. MiniMax additionally reads MINIMAX_BASE_URL to select the global (https://api.minimax.io/v1) or China (https://api.minimaxi.com/v1) endpoint. MiMo additionally reads MIMO_BASE_URL for Token Plan cluster endpoints such as https://token-plan-cn.xiaomimimo.com/v1.

OpenRouter works through the OpenAI-compatible adapter: set provider to openai, baseURL to https://openrouter.ai/api/v1, and pass OPENROUTER_API_KEY as the agent or orchestrator apiKey.

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Commands

oma run

Runs OpenMultiAgent.runTeam(team, goal): coordinator decomposition, task queue, optional synthesis.

When invoked with --dashboard, the CLI captures structured trace records for that run in addition to any configured sinks, combines them with the exact TeamRunResult, and writes a static Run Viewer to oma-dashboards/runTeam-<timestamp>.html. The generated page includes the task DAG, hierarchy-aware span Waterfall, filters, and safe evidence details.

The dashboard path is printed to stderr. The normal run JSON and exit status on stdout are unchanged. If trace capture cannot be materialized, the CLI emits DASHBOARD_TRACE_CAPTURE_FAILED on stderr and falls back to a result-only Viewer. Render or write failures use DASHBOARD_RENDER_FAILED or DASHBOARD_WRITE_FAILED and do not change the completed run result.

The dashboard page is self-contained: it does not load remote scripts, stylesheets, or fonts, and sensitive-looking values in the embedded run payload are redacted before rendering.

Argument	Required	Description
--goal	Yes	Natural-language goal passed to the team run.
--team	Yes	Path to JSON (see Team file).
--orchestrator	No	Path to JSON merged into new OpenMultiAgent(...) after any orchestrator fragment from the team file.
--coordinator	No	Path to JSON passed as runTeam(..., { coordinator }) (CoordinatorConfig).
--dashboard	No	Write a post-execution Run Viewer HTML to oma-dashboards/runTeam-<timestamp>.html; the output path and any dashboard-only warning go to stderr.

Global flags: --pretty, --include-messages.

oma dashboard

Exports exactly one existing FileTraceStore run without invoking a model, coordinator, agent, tool, or OpenTelemetry provider:

oma dashboard \
  --trace-store ./.oma/traces.ndjson \
  --run-id <runId> \
  [--output ./oma-dashboards/run.html] \
  [--pretty]

--trace-store and --run-id are required. The source file must already exist. The command opens it with the documented FileTraceStore recovery rules, reads one run with its records, renders the Viewer, and closes the store on both success and failure. It does not append, delete, compact, or apply retention.

Without --output, the CLI creates a timestamped file under oma-dashboards/. An explicit destination is never overwritten: an existing file returns dashboard_output_exists with exit code 2.

oma task

Runs OpenMultiAgent.runTasks(team, tasks) with a fixed task list (no coordinator decomposition).

Argument	Required	Description
--file	Yes	Path to tasks file.
--team	No	Path to JSON TeamConfig. When set, overrides the team object inside --file.

Global flags: --pretty, --include-messages.

oma provider

Read-only helper for wiring JSON configs and env vars.

• oma provider or oma provider list — Prints JSON: built-in provider ids, API key environment variable names, whether baseURL is supported, and short notes (e.g. OpenAI-compatible servers, Copilot in CI).
• oma provider template <provider> — Prints a JSON object with example orchestrator and agent fields plus placeholder env entries. <provider> is one of: anthropic, azure-openai, openai, gemini, grok, minimax, mimo, deepseek, doubao, qiniu, copilot, bedrock.

For OpenRouter, use the openai provider template, set baseURL to https://openrouter.ai/api/v1, and set apiKey from OPENROUTER_API_KEY in your JSON config.

Supports --pretty.

oma, oma help, oma -h, oma --help

Prints usage text to stdout and exits 0.

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Configuration files

Shapes match the library types TeamConfig, OrchestratorConfig, CoordinatorConfig, and the task objects accepted by runTasks().

Team file

Used with oma run --team (and optionally oma task --team).

Option A — plain TeamConfig

{
  "name": "api-team",
  "agents": [
    {
      "name": "architect",
      "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6",
      "provider": "anthropic",
      "systemPrompt": "You design APIs.",
      "tools": ["file_read", "file_write"],
      "maxTurns": 6
    }
  ],
  "sharedMemory": true
}

Option B — team plus default orchestrator settings

{
  "team": {
    "name": "api-team",
    "agents": [{ "name": "worker", "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6", "systemPrompt": "…" }]
  },
  "orchestrator": {
    "defaultModel": "claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "defaultProvider": "anthropic",
    "maxConcurrency": 3
  }
}

Validation rules enforced by the CLI:

• Root (or team) must be an object.
• team.name is a non-empty string.
• team.agents is a non-empty array; each agent must have non-empty name and model.

Any other fields are passed through to the library as in TypeScript.

SDK-only fields: sharedMemoryStore (custom MemoryStore instance) cannot be set from JSON since it is a runtime object. Use sharedMemory: true for the default in-memory store, or wire a custom store in TypeScript via orchestrator.createTeam().

Tasks file

Used with oma task --file.

{
  "orchestrator": {
    "defaultModel": "claude-sonnet-4-6"
  },
  "team": {
    "name": "pipeline",
    "agents": [
      { "name": "designer", "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6", "systemPrompt": "…" },
      { "name": "builder", "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6", "systemPrompt": "…" }
    ],
    "sharedMemory": true
  },
  "tasks": [
    {
      "title": "Design",
      "description": "Produce a short spec for the feature.",
      "assignee": "designer"
    },
    {
      "title": "Implement",
      "description": "Implement from the design.",
      "assignee": "builder",
      "dependsOn": ["Design"]
    }
  ]
}

• dependsOn — Task titles (not internal ids), same convention as the coordinator output in the library.
• Optional per-task fields: memoryScope ("dependencies" | "all"), maxRetries, retryDelayMs, retryBackoff. When retry is enabled (maxRetries > 0), backoff is jittered and provably-terminal failures — 4xx client errors other than 408/409/429, plus token-budget and invalid-message errors — skip retries automatically; no extra config.
• tasks must be a non-empty array; each item needs string title and description.

If --team path.json is passed, the file’s top-level team property is ignored and the external file is used instead (useful when the same team definition is shared across several pipeline files).

Orchestrator and coordinator JSON

These files are arbitrary JSON objects merged into OrchestratorConfig and CoordinatorConfig. Function-valued options (onProgress, onApproval, etc.) cannot appear in JSON and are not supported by the CLI.

Set defaultCwd on the orchestrator JSON, or cwd on individual agents/coordinator JSON, to choose the sandbox root for built-in filesystem tools. Paths passed to file_read, file_write, file_edit, grep, and glob must be absolute and resolve inside that root. When defaultCwd is omitted, the sandbox defaults to <cwd>/.agent-workspace (auto-created on first write). Pass the string "<process.cwd()>"-equivalent absolute path to widen it to the full working directory, or null to disable the sandbox. The bash tool is intentionally not covered — see docs/tool-configuration.md for the rationale and recommended posture.

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Output

Stdout

Every invocation prints one JSON document to stdout, followed by a newline.

Successful run / task

{
  "command": "run",
  "success": true,
  "goal": "Build a REST API with token auth",
  "tasks": [
    {
      "id": "task-1",
      "title": "Design the database schema",
      "assignee": "architect",
      "status": "completed",
      "dependsOn": []
    }
  ],
  "totalTokenUsage": { "input_tokens": 0, "output_tokens": 0 },
  "agentResults": {
    "architect": {
      "success": true,
      "output": "…",
      "tokenUsage": { "input_tokens": 0, "output_tokens": 0 },
      "toolCalls": [],
      "structured": null,
      "loopDetected": false,
      "budgetExceeded": false
    }
  }
}

agentResults keys are agent names. When an agent ran multiple tasks, the library merges results; the CLI mirrors the merged AgentRunResult fields.

Successful historical dashboard export

{
  "command": "dashboard",
  "runId": "run-01",
  "dashboard": "/absolute/path/to/oma-dashboards/run-2026-07-18.html"
}

Errors (usage, validation, I/O, runtime)

{
  "error": {
    "kind": "usage",
    "message": "--goal and --team are required"
  }
}

For existing commands, kind remains one of usage, validation, io, runtime, or internal. Dashboard export additionally uses stable categories such as trace_store_not_found, run_not_found, dashboard_output_exists, trace_store_close_failed, and lower-case FileTraceStoreError codes (for example corrupt_file). Error messages never include trace payloads.

Output flags

Flag	Effect
--pretty	Pretty-print JSON with indentation.
--include-messages	Include each agent’s full messages array in agentResults. Very large for long runs; default is omit.

Dashboard paths and dashboard-only diagnostics go to stderr. There is no separate progress stream; for live telemetry use the TypeScript API with onProgress or observability.sinks.

---

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success: run/task finished with success === true, dashboard export completed, or help / provider completed normally.
1	Run finished but success === false (agent or task failure as reported by the library).
2	Usage, validation, readable JSON errors, or file access issues (e.g. missing file).
3	Unexpected error, including typical LLM/API failures surfaced as thrown errors.

In scripts:

npx oma run --goal "Summarize README" --team team.json > result.json
code=$?
case $code in
  0) echo "OK" ;;
  1) echo "Run reported failure — inspect result.json" ;;
  2) echo "Bad inputs or files" ;;
  3) echo "Crash or API error" ;;
esac

---

Argument parsing

• Long options only: --goal, --team, --file, etc.
• Values may be attached with =: --team=./team.json.
• Boolean-style flags (--pretty, --include-messages) take no value; if the next token does not start with --, it is treated as the value of the previous option (standard getopt-style pairing).

---

Limitations (by design)

• No TTY session, history, or stdin goal input.
• No dedicated flag for the filesystem sandbox root; configure it through defaultCwd / cwd in the orchestrator or agent JSON.
• No onApproval from JSON; non-interactive batch only.
• Coordinator runTeam path still requires network and API keys like any other run.