Using CLI

The Contextium CLI lets you browse, search, and manage your workspace from the terminal. It is also the fastest way to feed your documentation into an AI agent during design or build — pipe files, skills, and context straight from your workspace into any tool that reads from the command line.

Requirements: Node.js 18 or later on macOS, Linux, or Windows.

---

Install

npx @contextium/cli@latest

Check it installed correctly:

npx @contextium/cli@latest --version

---

Sign in

contextium login

This opens a browser window where you sign in with your Contextium account. Once you're in, the CLI remembers your session. To check who you're signed in as, run:

contextium whoami

---

Key commands

See your workspaces and libraries

contextium workspaces

Lists every workspace you have access to.

contextium libraries -w my-workspace

Shows all context libraries in a workspace.

Browse and read files

contextium files my-library -w my-workspace

Lists files in a library.

contextium cat authentication-guide.md -w my-workspace

Prints the full content of a file to your terminal.

Find files by name

contextium find authentication -w my-workspace

Searches for files whose names contain your search term.

Search inside your docs

contextium search "password reset" -w my-workspace

Runs a full-text search across all files in your workspace.

Create a file

contextium new my-library -t "Auth Guide" -p auth-guide.md -f ./auth-guide.md -w my-workspace

Creates a new file in a library, using a local file as the content.

Edit an existing file

contextium edit <fileId> -c "Updated content here" -m "Fixed typos" --version

Updates a file and saves a version snapshot so you can roll back if needed.

---

Ground your AI agents

You can pipe your workspace content directly into any AI tool from the terminal. This is how you ground an agent in your real documentation — at design time, during a build step, or in a CI/CD pipeline.

# Ground an agent with everything from a workspace
contextium cat --all -w my-workspace

# Ground with only files tagged for a specific context
contextium cat --tag foundation-context -w my-workspace

Pipe the output however your AI tool expects it — redirect to a file, pass it via stdin, or include it in an agent build script. Because everyone pulls from the same workspace, every agent gets the same context — no inconsistencies between team members.

Notify teammates

You can notify workspace team members about any resource directly from the terminal — no need to open the web UI.

# Notify everyone about a file
contextium notify file <fileId> "API Design Doc" -w my-workspace

# Notify specific people by name
contextium notify workflow <workflowId> "Dev Workflow" --to "Sarah, Tom"

# Notify by email with a custom message
contextium notify file <fileId> "Spec" --email "sarah@co.com" -m "Please review"

If a name matches more than one member, the command lists all matches and asks you to re-run with --email to be precise.

---

For the full list of commands and flags, see the CLI Command Reference.