CLI reference

Run excalibur without arguments to list commands. In this version, excalibur --help shows only the global flag help. Command families such as excalibur task --help list their subcommands. Some subcommand help requests print help and also exit with an error, so do not use their exit status as a daemon health check.

Common commands

Command	Purpose
excalibur daemon start	Run the daemon
excalibur daemon stop	Request daemon shutdown
excalibur chat "MESSAGE"	Send a conversation message
excalibur exec "REQUEST"	Run a non-interactive request
excalibur status	List run status through the daemon
excalibur tasks	List tasks through the daemon
excalibur projects	List registered projects
excalibur memory "QUERY"	Query memory
excalibur skills "QUERY"	Search skills
excalibur ext --help	List extension subcommands
excalibur vault --help	List vault subcommands

Quoted uppercase text and identifiers below are placeholders. Replace them with your request or the actual returned identifier. Chat, status, tasks, projects, memory, and skills require a reachable daemon. exec can run without one and still needs a configured provider.

Follow a background task

excalibur task start "Review the README without editing files."
excalibur task status TASK_ID
excalibur task wait TASK_ID --timeout 300
excalibur task result TASK_ID --format md

task start returns immediately with an identifier. If a question is pending, answer with excalibur task reply TASK_ID "ANSWER". The task family also includes pause, resume, cancel, list, and logs. Use the same --project directory for subsequent commands when the task is stored in project state.

The global --json flag goes before the command, as in excalibur --json status. exec also accepts --json to stream machine-readable events and a final summary.

Interpret completion

For exec and terminal task states returned by task wait:

Code	Meaning
0	Completed
1	Command, configuration, or runtime error
2	Completed with pending items
3	Blocked
4	Paused or execution timeout
5	Failed
130	Canceled

A bounded wait can return while work is still active. Read the reported state, not only the exit code. See Quick start for prerequisites and Configuration for provider settings.