CLI

Use PRX directly from the terminal with stdin/stdout for interactive conversations without any external service dependencies.

Prerequisites

• PRX installed and configured with at least one LLM provider
• A terminal with stdin/stdout support

Quick Setup

1. Configure

The CLI channel is enabled by default. No additional configuration is needed.

[channels_config]
cli = true  # default, can be omitted

2. Start

prx

PRX will start in interactive mode, reading from stdin and writing responses to stdout.

3. Usage

Type your message and press Enter. Special commands:

> Hello, how are you?
[PRX responds...]

> /quit    # Exit the session
> /exit    # Exit the session (alternative)

Configuration Reference

Field	Type	Default	Description
cli	bool	true	Enable or disable the CLI interactive channel

Features

• Zero dependencies -- no external accounts, tokens, or APIs needed beyond the LLM provider
• Always available -- enabled by default; works out of the box after installation
• stdin/stdout interface -- standard Unix I/O for easy scripting and piping
• Empty line filtering -- blank lines are silently ignored
• Graceful exit -- type /quit or /exit to end the session cleanly
• Full tool access -- all configured tools (shell, file, browser, memory, etc.) are available

Limitations

• Single-user, single-session only
• No persistent conversation history across sessions (unless session persistence is enabled globally)
• No media or file attachment support (text-only input)
• No streaming/progressive output (responses are printed in full after generation)
• Cannot run concurrently with other channels in the same process unless explicitly configured

Troubleshooting

PRX does not start in CLI mode

• Ensure cli = true (or omit it, as it defaults to true) in [channels_config]
• If other channels are configured, PRX may prioritize them; check the startup logs
• Verify that at least one LLM provider is configured

Input is not processed

• Ensure you are typing in the terminal where PRX is running (not a backgrounded process)
• Empty lines are ignored; type a non-empty message
• Check that stdin is connected (not redirected from /dev/null)

How to use CLI with pipes

• PRX reads from stdin line by line, so you can pipe input:

  echo "What is 2 + 2?" | prx

• For multi-turn conversations via scripts, use a FIFO or expect-based approach