OpenViking/crates/ov_cli

OpenViking CLI

Command-line interface for OpenViking, an Agent-native context database.

This package builds the native ov binary. Use it to configure an OpenViking endpoint, import resources, browse viking:// paths, retrieve context, inspect server status, manage sessions, and run administrative workflows.

中文文档见 README_CN.md.

Installation

Install from npm

npm i -g @openviking/cli

The npm package installs the platform-specific ov binary for macOS, Linux, or Windows.

Install from source

# OpenViking requires Rust >= 1.91.1.
cargo install --path crates/ov_cli

If you are developing inside this crate:

cd crates/ov_cli
cargo install --path .

Configuration

The recommended setup path is the interactive config manager:

ov config

ov config can add, edit, delete, validate, and switch saved configs. It writes the active client config to ~/.openviking/ovcli.conf. Saved named configs are stored as ~/.openviking/ovcli.conf.<name>, and ov config switch <name> copies the selected saved config to the active config path.

Recent CLI versions require a saved display language before most commands run in non-interactive shells:

ov language en
# or
ov language zh-CN

For scripts and agents, prefer deterministic config commands and pass secrets through stdin or existing environment variables:

# OpenViking Service
printf '%s' "$OPENVIKING_API_KEY" | \
  ov config add ov-service --name prod --api-key-stdin --activate -o json

# Custom local server without auth
ov config add custom --name local --url http://127.0.0.1:1933 --activate -o json

# Custom remote server with a user API key
printf '%s' "$OPENVIKING_API_KEY" | \
  ov config add custom --name remote --url https://ov.example.com --api-key-stdin --activate -o json

Validate the active config:

ov config show
ov config list -o json
ov config validate
ov health
ov status

ov config show redacts secrets. Avoid printing raw ~/.openviking/ovcli.conf unless you understand it may contain API keys.

Manual config file

Manual editing is still supported. A minimal custom-server config looks like:

{
  "url": "http://localhost:1933",
  "api_key": "your-api-key",
  "account": "acme",
  "user": "alice"
}

account and user are usually optional when using a regular user API key because the server can derive identity from the key. They are recommended for trusted auth mode and tenant-scoped operations. They are required for root-key-only configs because a root key has no built-in tenant identity.

For more setup details, see docs/en/getting-started/05-cli-setup.md.

Quick Start

# Check connectivity
ov health
ov status

# Add a resource and wait for processing
ov add-resource https://raw.githubusercontent.com/volcengine/OpenViking/refs/heads/main/docs/en/about/01-about-us.md --wait

# Browse context
ov ls viking://resources
ov tree viking://resources -L 2
ov read viking://resources/...

# Retrieve context
ov find "what is openviking"
ov grep "openviking" --uri viking://resources

Run ov --help and ov <command> --help for the exact command surface of your installed version.

Command Groups

Resource Management

• add-resource - Import local files, directories, URLs, Git repositories, and supported document sources.
• add-skill - Add a skill from a directory, SKILL.md, or raw content.
• skills - List, find, show, update, remove, and validate installed skills.
• export / import - Export or import context as .ovpack.
• backup / restore - Back up and restore public OpenViking scopes as restore-only .ovpack files.

Filesystem

• ls - List directory contents.
• tree - Show a hierarchical tree.
• mkdir - Create a directory.
• rm - Remove a resource or directory.
• cp - Copy a file, or copy a directory recursively with -r.
• mv - Move or rename a resource.
• stat - Show resource metadata.
• attrs - Get logical extended attributes.
• get - Download a file to a local path.

# The destination parent must exist. Existing files are overwritten; directories are merged.
ov cp viking://resources/docs/guide.md viking://resources/archive/guide-copy.md
ov cp -r viking://resources/docs viking://resources/docs-backup

Content Access

• read - Read L2 full content.
• abstract - Read L0 abstract content.
• overview - Read L1 overview content.
• write - Replace, append, or create text content.

Search

• find - Semantic retrieval.
• search - Context-aware retrieval. Experimental.
• grep - Content pattern search.
• glob - File glob pattern search.

Sessions And Memory

• session new - Create a session with optional event-memory tags and auto-commit policy.
• session list - List sessions.
• session get - Get session details.
• session get-session-context - Get merged session context.
• session add-message / session add-messages - Add messages to a session.
• session config set - Update mutable session configuration.
• session commit - Archive messages and extract memories, optionally overriding event tags.
• add-memory - Create a session, add messages, and commit in one shot. Experimental.

ov session new --session-id s1 --event-tags team=search,channel=web \
  --auto-commit-policy-json '{"message_count_threshold":25}'
ov session new --session-id s2 --no-auto-commit
ov session config set s1 --event-tags team=search,channel=app
ov session config set s1 --auto-commit-policy-json '{"message_count_threshold":25}'
ov session config set s1 --no-auto-commit
ov session commit s1 --event-tags team=search,channel=web
ov session commit s1 --no-event-tags

Interactive

• tui - Interactive file explorer.
• chat - Chat with the vikingbot agent.

Status And Observability

• health - Quick health check.
• status - Aggregated server component status.
• wait - Wait for queued async processing.
• task status / task list - Track async tasks.
• task watch - Manage auto-refresh watch tasks.
• observer queue - Queue status.
• observer vikingdb - VikingDB status.
• observer models - VLM, embedding, and rerank model status.
• observer retrieval - Retrieval quality metrics.
• observer filesystem - Filesystem operation metrics.
• observer system - Overall system status.

Configuration

• config - Interactive config manager.
• config show - Show the active config with secrets redacted.
• config validate - Validate the active config.
• config list - List saved configs.
• config switch - Switch the active config.
• config add - Add a saved config non-interactively.
• config edit - Edit a saved config non-interactively.
• config delete - Delete a saved config.
• language / lang - Choose CLI display language (en or zh-CN).
• version - Show CLI version.

Versioned Workspace Snapshots

• snapshot commit - Create a workspace snapshot.
• snapshot restore - Restore a path or workspace to a previous snapshot.
• snapshot show - Show commit metadata or blob content.
• snapshot log - Walk snapshot history.
• snapshot ignore-get / snapshot ignore-set / snapshot ignore-delete - Manage account .ovgitignore.

Privacy

• privacy - Manage privacy configuration categories, targets, versions, and active config.

Admin

Use --sudo for commands that require the configured root_api_key.

• admin create-account - Create an account and first admin user.
• admin list-accounts - List accounts. ROOT only.
• admin delete-account - Delete an account. ROOT only.
• admin register-user - Register a user.
• admin list-users - List users in an account.
• admin remove-user - Remove a user.
• admin set-role - Change a user's role. ROOT only.
• admin regenerate-key - Rotate a user's API key.
• admin set-account-settings - Update allowlisted account settings.
• admin migrate - Migrate legacy agent/session data. ROOT only.
• system - Administrative system utility commands.
• reindex - Rebuild semantic and vector artifacts for a URI.

Output Formats

The default output is human-readable table/card rendering. Use JSON for scripts:

ov -o json ls viking://resources
ov -o json config list

Some command help may also show the long --output json form. -o json is the compact form used throughout tests and automation examples.

Examples

# Add URL and wait for processing
ov add-resource https://example.com/docs --wait --timeout 60

# Add a local directory with filters
ov add-resource ./dir \
  --wait --timeout 600 \
  --ignore-dirs "node_modules,dist" \
  --include "*.md,*.py" \
  --exclude "*.tmp,*.log"

# Import into a predictable parent path
ov add-resource ./docs -p "viking://resources/docs/{calendar:today}" --wait

# Search with filters
ov find "API authentication" --threshold 0.7 --limit 5
ov find "authentication" --uri viking://resources/project --level 0,1

# Recursive list
ov ls viking://resources --recursive

# Write caller-provided tags, then filter or project them
ov write viking://resources/docs/api.md --content "# API" \
  --tags team=search,env=prod
ov ls viking://resources/docs --tags team=search,env=prod --fields tags
ov grep "TODO" --uri viking://resources/docs --tags team=search,env=prod
ov glob "**/*.md" --uri viking://resources/docs --tags team=search,env=prod

# Temporarily override identity from CLI flags
ov --account acme --user alice ls viking://

# Use a root API key for administrative commands
ov --sudo admin create-account acme --admin alice --seed alice-seed
ov admin register-user acme bob --role user --seed bob-seed
ov admin regenerate-key acme bob --seed bob-new-seed

# Glob search
ov glob "**/*.md" --uri viking://resources
ov glob "**/*.md" --uri viking://resources -f tags

# Session workflow
SESSION=$(ov -o json session new | jq -r '.result.session_id')
ov session add-message "$SESSION" --role user --content "Hello"
ov session commit "$SESSION"

# Watch task management
ov add-resource https://example.com/docs --to viking://resources/docs --watch-interval 60
ov task watch ls
ov task watch trigger viking://resources/docs

Development

# Build
cargo build --release

# Smoke the exact binary that was built
target/release/ov --version
target/release/ov -o json health

# Run tests
cargo test

# Install locally
cargo install --path .

When driving external e2e harnesses, point them at target/release/ov explicitly instead of relying on an older ov that may already be installed on PATH.