Where does it install, and does it need sudo?

Into ~/.broodle-cli (%USERPROFILE%\.broodle-cli on Windows), with the broodle-cli launcher in the first user-owned bin directory already on your PATH — usually ~/.local/bin. No sudo required. Pass --dir and --bin to override either location.

How do I get an API key?

Generate a bk_live_ key in the Broodle console under Studio → API keys, then run /auth in the CLI and paste it — or export BROODLE_API_KEY before launching. Your token balance is shown the moment you connect.

How do I update or uninstall?

Re-run the install command: it reads the current version manifest, and if you already have that build it exits without touching anything. Each version installs side by side, so a rollback is instant. To remove it: curl -fsSL https://broodle.host/broodle-cli | bash -s -- --uninstall. Your settings in ~/.broodle are left untouched.

Is the download verified?

Yes. The installer fetches a manifest with the expected SHA-256, downloads the tarball over HTTPS, and refuses to install if the checksum does not match. You can fetch /cli/version.json and verify the same digest by hand.

Does it work with the Broodle MCP server?

Yes. Add the Broodle MCP server to ~/.broodle/settings.json and the CLI gains your cPanel, VPS, DNS, email and billing tools alongside its own file and shell tools, all governed by the same approval modes.

Broodle CLI is based on Qwen Code by the Qwen team (Apache 2.0), rebuilt around the Broodle Studio API — Broodle models only, with token balance, Auto-Memory, Auto-Skills and agent teams layered on top.

Broodle Studio CLIApache 2.0 · built on Qwen Code

An AI coding agent that lives in your terminal

Auto-Memory, Auto-Skills, subagents and MCP — out of the box. Powered by the Broodle Studio API with your own bk_live_ key, and your token balance on screen the moment you connect.

$curl -fsSL https://broodle.host/broodle-cli | bash

Installs into ~/.broodle-cli and adds broodle-cli to your PATH. Re-run to update.

Install guide Command reference Read the install script

broodle-cli — ~/projects/api

$what you get

Agentic out of the box

Not a chat box with a shell bolted on. Memory that survives sessions, skills it writes itself, agents that fan out, and every edit reversible.

Auto-Memory

Remembers your stack, conventions and corrections across sessions. /remember, /forget and /dream keep it honest.

Auto-Skills

Turns a doc, repo, URL or video into a reusable skill with /learn, then invokes it by name when the task fits.

SubAgents & Agent Teams

Fan work out to parallel agents with /agents and /fork — reviews, migrations and sweeps that one context cannot hold.

MCP built in

Connect any MCP server — including the Broodle MCP — and the CLI gets your cPanel, VPS and DNS tools in the terminal.

Approval modes

plan → default → auto-edit → auto → yolo, cycled with Shift+Tab. Per-folder trust and permission rules keep edits scoped.

Checkpoints & rewind

/restore rolls files back to the checkpoint before any tool call; /rewind, /branch and /resume move through the conversation.

Headless & scriptable

broodle-cli -p "…" for CI, cron and pipes. Structured output, hooks and exit codes make it safe to automate.

IDE-friendly

Companion integrations for VS Code, Zed and JetBrains, plus a daemon mode that serves one shared agent over HTTP+SSE.

$/help

Every command, one search away

53 slash commands grouped the way you actually use them — the same list /help prints inside the CLI.

Start, save, fork and rewind the conversation.

/init

Analyse the current directory and write an initial context file

/resume/resume · /continue

Resume a previous session

/branch

Fork the current conversation into a new session

/fork/fork write the migration

Spawn a background agent that inherits the full conversation

/rewind/rewind · /rollback

Rewind the conversation to an earlier turn

/restore/restore <id>

Revert project files to the checkpoint before a tool call ran

/compress/compress-fast for a no-AI strip

Replace chat history with a summary to save tokens

/summary/summary docs/summary.md

Generate a project summary from the conversation

/export/export md · html · json · jsonl

Export session history to a file

/rename/rename Payments refactor

Rename or tag the current session

/clear/clear · /reset · /new

Clear history and free the context window

$syntax

Four characters do most of the work

Files, shell, commands and scripting — each one prefix away, with completion the moment you type it.

Pull files into context

Reference any file or folder and the CLI reads it in before answering. Completion opens as soon as you type @.

@src/server.ts explain the retry logic

Run a shell command

Prefix with ! to execute directly in your shell, or press ! on an empty prompt to stay in shell mode.

!npm test -- --watch=false

Custom commands

Drop a Markdown file in ~/.broodle/commands/ and it becomes a slash command — with {{args}}, !{shell} and @{file} injection.

~/.broodle/commands/refactor.md → /refactor

Shell subcommands

Run the CLI non-interactively from your shell for scripting, CI and session management.

broodle-cli sessions list --json --limit 50

$keys

Shortcuts worth learning

Press ? on an empty prompt for the full sheet.

Shift+Tab: Cycle approval modes: plan → default → auto-edit → auto → yolo
Esc: Cancel the running request; press twice when idle to open the rewind selector
Ctrl+C: Cancel and clear the input; twice to exit
Ctrl+O: Expand or collapse all thinking blocks and tool output
Ctrl+Q: Queue a prompt for the next turn instead of steering this one
Ctrl+L: Clear the screen
?: Show the shortcut sheet when the input is empty
Ctrl+Enter: Insert a newline instead of submitting
Ctrl+T: Toggle tool descriptions in the transcript
Alt+M: Switch Markdown between rendered and raw source
Ctrl+S: Stash the current input for the next launch; with an empty prompt, print long output in full
Tab: Accept the current completion

$/model

The AI engines behind it

Six Broodle tiers on one key, switchable mid-session — and underneath, a separate engine for each job the agent does. The free tier is never charged, so you can leave it on and escalate only when the task earns it.

Model tiers

broodle-freeFree

Quick questions and light edits. Never charged.

broodle-flash-v2Flash V2

More capacity, still cheap — 0.1× the Pro rate.

broodle-proPro

High-capacity model for complex reasoning and coding.

broodle-pro-v2Pro V2

Advanced coding model for long, hard changes.

broodle-ultraUltra

Maximum power for the hardest tasks.

Billed from your Broodle Studio token balance — top up in the console.

One engine per role

/model: The model that plans, reasons and writes the code.
/model --fast: A lighter engine for prompt suggestions, so hints stay cheap.
/model --vision: Transcribes images for a text-only main engine — screenshots still work.
/model --voice: Turns voice dictation into prompts for hands-free input.
/model --compaction: Summarises history when the context fills, without spending the main engine.
/model --image: An image-only engine behind the built-in generation tool.
/effort: low → medium → high → xhigh → max, mapped and clamped per provider.

Reasoning effort you control

/effort moves the engine between low, medium, high, xhigh and max — mapped and clamped per provider, so the same setting means something sane everywhere.

A different engine per job

Suggestions, image transcription, voice, compression and image generation each take their own model, so the expensive engine is only spent on the hard part.

Caching built into the loop

System instructions and conversation history are cached automatically on API-key auth, so repeated turns re-send far fewer tokens than they otherwise would.

$automations

Work that keeps going without you

The agent does not stop at the prompt. Hook into its lifecycle, put prompts on a schedule, drive it from a chat app, fan work out to background agents, or let it run your desktop — all under the same approval rules.

Lifecycle hooks

Run your own scripts at fixed points in the agent loop — before and after any tool call, at session start and end. Gate risky commands, log everything, or fix up files automatically.

PreToolUse · PostToolUse · session start/end

Scheduled prompts

/loop turns any prompt into a cron job that fires in the background while you keep working — poll a deploy, babysit a PR, or check a long build. It runs once immediately, so you never wait for the first tick.

/loop 5m check if the deploy finished

Chat channels

Drive the same agent from Telegram, WeChat, QQ, DingTalk, WeCom or Feishu — or let it watch GitHub and GitLab and answer @mentions on issues and pull requests. Channel loops persist and push results back to the chat.

broodle-cli channel start

Subagents & forks

Delegate focused work to agents with their own context and tool allowlist. A fork inherits the whole conversation and runs detached in the background, reporting back when it finishes.

/agents create · /fork <directive>

Computer use

Built-in desktop control — click, type, scroll, launch apps, read windows and take screenshots. Actions still go through the approval flow, so nothing moves without your say-so.

computer_use__* · disable in settings.json

CI-grade headless

Run non-interactively and constrain the answer to a JSON Schema you supply — the model must call a synthetic tool, and the validated payload lands on stdout. Safe to pipe into other jobs.

broodle-cli -p "…" --json-schema '{…}'

Worktree isolation

Send wide-ranging edits into a temporary git worktree instead of your checkout, so an experiment never contaminates the branch you are on.

--worktree · per-subagent sandboxes

Agent Arena

Put several models on the same task at once, each in its own isolated worktree, then compare the results side by side and merge the winner. Experimental, and genuinely useful for hard problems.

/arena start · /arena select

$/goal

Goal mode: name the outcome, not the steps

Most agents stop at the end of a turn. Give the CLI a Goal and it keeps working toward it across turns — re-planning, running tools and checking itself until the objective is met or you pause it. The Goal is stored with the session, so it survives the process: start it in your terminal, inspect it later from a script.

$broodle-cli -p "/goal Finish the release checklist"

$broodle-cli --continue -p "/goal"

Pause and resume without spending a model call
State persists with the session — pick it up from a later process
Wall-time and tool-call budgets pause the work before it overruns

goal controls

/goal <objective>: Set the objective and start work toward it
/goal: Report the stored state without spending a model call
/goal edit <objective>: Revise the objective; work resumes immediately
/goal pause: Pause an active Goal, no model call
/goal resume: Resume an eligible Goal and continue working
/goal clear: Drop the Goal entirely

$install

Running in under a minute

One command pulls a prebuilt bundle straight from broodle.host and puts broodle-cli on your PATH. No git, no npm install, no compile step, no sudo.

Install

macOS and Linux:

$curl -fsSL https://broodle.host/broodle-cli | bash

Windows PowerShell:

$irm https://broodle.host/broodle-cli.ps1 | iex

Launch

From any project directory:

$broodle-cli

Connect

Run /auth and paste your key — or set it in the environment first:

$export BROODLE_API_KEY="bk_live_…"

Before you start

Node.js 22 or later
curl or PowerShell
about 120MB of disk
A Broodle Studio API key

Update & uninstall

Re-run the install command — it reads the manifest and exits untouched if you already have that build. To remove it:

$curl -fsSL https://broodle.host/broodle-cli | bash -s -- --uninstall

Settings, skills and memory in ~/.broodle are left untouched. Pin a build with --version, or relocate it with --dir / --bin.

Where things live

~/.broodle/settings.json: — global settings
~/.broodle/commands/: — custom slash commands
~/.broodle/skills/: — agent skills
~/.broodle/memory.md: — persistent memory
~/.broodle-cli/: — the install itself

Prefer to inspect first? Read the script at /broodle-cli or /broodle-cli.ps1 before piping it anywhere.

$faq

Questions, answered

Node.js 22 or later and a Broodle Studio API key. That is the whole list — the installer downloads a prebuilt bundle, so there is no git clone, no npm install and no compile step. It checks your Node version first and stops with a clear message if it is too old.

free tier included

One line, and it’s in your terminal

Install it, run /auth, and start on the free tier — no card, no separate subscription. Your Broodle token balance covers everything above it.

$curl -fsSL https://broodle.host/broodle-cli | bash

Get an API key

An AI coding agent that lives in your terminal

Auto-Memory, Auto-Skills, subagents and MCP — out of the box. Powered by the Broodle Studio API with your own bk_live_ key, and your token balance on screen the moment you connect.

$curl -fsSL https://broodle.host/broodle-cli | bash

Installs into ~/.broodle-cli and adds broodle-cli to your PATH. Re-run to update.

Four characters do most of the work

Files, shell, commands and scripting — each one prefix away, with completion the moment you type it.

Pull files into context

Reference any file or folder and the CLI reads it in before answering. Completion opens as soon as you type @.

@src/server.ts explain the retry logic

Run a shell command

Prefix with ! to execute directly in your shell, or press ! on an empty prompt to stay in shell mode.

!npm test -- --watch=false

Custom commands

Drop a Markdown file in ~/.broodle/commands/ and it becomes a slash command — with {{args}}, !{shell} and @{file} injection.

~/.broodle/commands/refactor.md → /refactor

Shell subcommands

Run the CLI non-interactively from your shell for scripting, CI and session management.

broodle-cli sessions list --json --limit 50

Shortcuts worth learning

Press ? on an empty prompt for the full sheet.

Shift+Tab

Cycle approval modes: plan → default → auto-edit → auto → yolo

Esc

Cancel the running request; press twice when idle to open the rewind selector

Ctrl+C

Cancel and clear the input; twice to exit

Ctrl+O

Expand or collapse all thinking blocks and tool output

Ctrl+Q

Queue a prompt for the next turn instead of steering this one

Ctrl+L

Clear the screen

?

Show the shortcut sheet when the input is empty

Ctrl+Enter

Insert a newline instead of submitting

Ctrl+T

Toggle tool descriptions in the transcript

Alt+M

Switch Markdown between rendered and raw source

Ctrl+S

Stash the current input for the next launch; with an empty prompt, print long output in full

Tab

Accept the current completion

Goal mode: name the outcome, not the steps

$broodle-cli -p "/goal Finish the release checklist"

$broodle-cli --continue -p "/goal"

Pause and resume without spending a model call

State persists with the session — pick it up from a later process

Wall-time and tool-call budgets pause the work before it overruns