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, 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 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.

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.

---

Commands

oma run

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

When invoked with --dashboard, the oma CLI writes a static post-execution DAG dashboard HTML to oma-dashboards/runTeam-<timestamp>.html under the current working directory (the library does not write files itself; if you want this outside the CLI, call renderTeamRunDashboard(result) in application code — see src/dashboard/render-team-run-dashboard.ts).

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 DAG dashboard HTML to oma-dashboards/runTeam-<timestamp>.html.

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

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, 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.

---

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.
• 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.

---

Output

Stdout

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

Successful run / task

{
  "command": "run",
  "success": true,
  "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.

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

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

kind is one of: usage, validation, io, runtime, or internal (uncaught errors in the outer handler).

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.

There is no separate progress stream; for rich telemetry use the TypeScript API with onProgress / onTrace.

---

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success: run/task finished with success === true, 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 built-in cwd or metadata passed into ToolUseContext (tools use process cwd unless the library adds other hooks later).
• No onApproval from JSON; non-interactive batch only.
• Coordinator runTeam path still requires network and API keys like any other run.