Zelari Code

AI Council coding agent CLI — multi-agent orchestration with slash commands, provider-agnostic LLM streaming, and self-update.

Zelari Code is a standalone CLI extracted from AnathemaBrain. It brings the multi-agent council (Caronte, Nettuno, Gerione, Plutone, Minosse, Lucifero) directly into your terminal with a rich TUI (Ink + React), slash command system, and provider-agnostic LLM streaming (OpenAI-compatible, xAI Grok with OAuth, GLM/Z.AI).

Upgrading from ≤ 0.4.x? See MIGRATION.md — the internal src/main/core/, src/agents/, src/shared/, src/types/ paths no longer exist. The published core package is @zelari/core (MIT). 9 subpath exports.

Install

npm install -g zelari-code
zelari-code

Requires Node.js ≥ 20.

zelari-code: command not found (Windows)

After npm install -g, the zelari-code command may not be on your PATH. Fix:

PowerShell (run as admin, then restart your terminal):

$npmPrefix = npm config get prefix
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("Path", $env:Path + ";$npmPrefix", "User")

Git Bash / WSL:

echo 'export PATH="$(npm config get prefix):$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Verify the fix: where zelari-code (CMD) or which zelari-code (Bash) should print a path.

First Run

The first time you run zelari-code (or whenever your provider config is missing), the CLI launches a 5-step onboarding wizard instead of the regular TUI:

╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ zelari-code v0.6.0 — first-time setup    │
│ 1/welcome  2/provider  3/model  4/apikey  5/...│
│                                                 │
│ Welcome! Let's get you coding in under 2 min.   │
│ Press [Enter] to continue, [Q] to quit.         │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

The wizard walks you through:

1. Welcome — overview + how to quit.
2. Provider — pick from grok, minimax, glm, openai-compatible (↑/↓ + Enter).
3. Model — type a model name or accept the default (Enter).
4. API key — choose env (use GROK_API_KEY etc.), keystore (save locally), or skip (set later via /login).
5. Confirm — review + Enter to commit.

When you press Enter on confirm, the wizard writes ~/.tmp/zelari-code/provider.json (and keys.json if you chose keystore), shows a brief "✓ Setup complete!" banner, then transparently transitions into the regular TUI — no need to re-launch.

Skipping / re-running

zelari-code --no-wizard            # skip wizard even on first run
zelari-code --reset-config         # force re-run wizard (clears provider.json)
ZELARI_NO_WIZARD=1 zelari-code     # env equivalent of --no-wizard
zelari-code --version              # print version + exit (no TUI)
zelari-code --help                 # print help + exit (no TUI)

The wizard re-runs automatically if provider.json is missing on the next launch.

Quick Start

# Set your OpenAI-compatible API key (OpenAI, Together, Groq, custom endpoint, etc.)
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

# Or use Grok via OAuth (Device Authorization Grant — RFC 8628)
zelari-code
# Inside the TUI: /login grok
# → A code + verification URL appears; open the URL, enter the code, authorize.

# Or use GLM/Z.AI
export GLM_API_KEY=...

# Run zelari-code from any directory
zelari-code

Slash Commands

Self-Update

Zelari Code includes a built-in update mechanism:

# Inside the TUI:
/update          # check for updates (prints current vs latest)
/update --yes    # apply update (runs npm install -g zelari-code@latest)
/update force    # reinstall latest (even if already on latest)

On startup, the CLI silently checks the npm registry. If a newer version is available, it prints a one-line hint to stderr.

Disable auto-check: ZELARI_DEV=1 zelari-code

Features

• 🤖 Multi-agent council — 6 roles (Caronte, Nettuno, Gerione, Plutone, Minosse, Lucifero) with feedback loops and member promotion
• 🎨 Rich TUI — Ink + React multi-panel interface (header, chat stream, sidebar, input bar)
• 🧠 Provider-agnostic — OpenAI-compatible APIs (OpenAI, Together, Groq, custom), xAI Grok with OAuth refresh, GLM/Z.AI
• 🛠️ Built-in tools — filesystem (read/write/edit), shell (bash), search (grep), git operations
• 📚 7 coding skills — refactoring, testing, debugging, review, planning, docs, git-ops
• 🔄 Cross-provider failover — automatic retry with provider swap on transient errors
• 💰 Cost tracking — per-turn + cumulative USD cost via model pricing registry
• 📊 Metrics + skill history — fire-and-forget logging to ~/.tmp/zelari-code/
• 🗜️ Session management — JSONL transcripts, resume across restarts, compaction
• 🌿 Branch isolation — worktree-per-session mode for safe experimentation
• 🔌 Slash command system — 30+ commands for skill invocation, provider config, cost, sessions, etc.
• 🆕 Self-update — /update slash command + silent registry check on startup

Architecture

zelari-code (CLI)
├── src/cli/                  # Ink UI (app.tsx, slashCommands.ts, updater.ts, …)
│   ├── components/           # Header, ChatStream, InputBar, Sidebar, …
│   ├── provider/             # OpenAI-compatible adapter
│   └── …
├── src/agents/               # Council (councilApi), skills registry, promoteMember
├── src/main/core/            # AgentHarness (provider-neutral agent loop)
│   └── tools/                # Tool registry + filesystem/shell/search builtins
├── src/shared/               # BrainEvent types (provider-neutral event contract)
└── src/types/                # Workspace, context, knowledge types

AgentHarness is the core: it takes (model, provider, messages, tools) + a streaming function and yields an AsyncIterable<BrainEvent>. The CLI subscribes to the event stream and updates the chat transcript via eventsToMessages().

Environment Variables

Council Workspace

The CLI persists council output (decisions, risks, docs, plan, reviews) into a project-local .zelari/ directory and auto-curates an AGENTS.MD at the project root.

Layout

.zelari/                      # auto-gitignored, per-project
├── plan.md                   # phases / tasks / milestones (Markdown + YAML frontmatter)
├── risks.md                  # risk register (live, ordered by severity)
├── decisions/                # ADRs (Architecture Decision Records) — 001-<slug>.md
├── reviews/                  # Minosse verdict per council run
└── docs/                     # doc drafts produced by the council
AGENTS.MD                     # committed at project root, auto-curated from .zelari/

Slash commands

AGENTS.MD format

AGENTS.MD is partitioned into:

1. Manual blocks (free-form, preserved verbatim across updates) — write anything you want here.
2. Auto-managed sections delimited by <!-- zelari:auto:start section="..." --> / <!-- zelari:auto:end --> markers — overwritten each sync.

Auto-managed sections:

• tech-stack — languages, frameworks, build tools (derived from package.json)
• decisions — accepted ADRs (newest first, capped)
• conventions — code conventions observed in source tree
• build — build/test/lint commands
• open-questions — info-level risks + unsolved questions

Set ZELARI_AGENTS_MD=0 to disable AGENTS.MD auto-curation.

Storage layout internals

• Frontmatter: subset YAML (scalars, flow/sequence/block-sequence arrays, flow/block maps) — no external deps.
• Concurrency: per-key mutex (filesystem writes are serialized per artifact).
• Idempotency: hash comparison — AGENTS.MD write is skipped when no section changed (clean git diff).

See docs/plans/2026-07-01-council-workspace-cli-stubs.md for the full schema.

Development

git clone https://github.com/N-THEM-Studio/zelari-code.git
cd zelari-code
npm install
npm run build:cli
npm link
zelari-code

Run tests

npm test

Typecheck

npm run typecheck

Related Projects

• AnathemaBrain — the Electron desktop GUI that shares the agent runtime + council system with this CLI
• Zelari Coder originated as the npm run coder script inside AnathemaBrain

License

Proprietary © 2026 N-THEM Studio. See LICENSE.