CLI Overview

What is the Compozy CLI?

The Compozy Command Line Interface (CLI) is a comprehensive tool that serves as your primary interface for interacting with the Compozy workflow orchestration engine. It provides everything you need to create, develop, deploy, and manage AI-powered applications through simple, intuitive commands.

If you're new to Compozy, start with our Quick Start guide to get up and running in 5 minutes, or follow the First Workflow tutorial for a hands-on introduction to building AI workflows.

Why Use the Compozy CLI?

1
Rapid Project Setup
Initialize new projects with intelligent scaffolding that creates the optimal project structure for your AI workflows, complete with example configurations and best practices
2
Seamless Development
Run development servers with hot-reload capabilities, allowing you to iterate quickly on your workflows and see changes in real-time without restarting
3
Workflow Management
Execute, monitor, and debug AI workflows with rich interactive interfaces or automation-friendly JSON output for CI/CD integration
4
Tool Integration
Manage Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers to extend your AI capabilities with external tools and services

Command Overview

The CLI is organized into logical command groups that map to different aspects of the Compozy system. Each command category serves a specific purpose in your workflow development lifecycle:

Project Commands

Learn how to initialize projects, manage configurations, and set up your development environment with best practices

Development Commands

Master the development server, hot-reload features, and debugging capabilities for rapid workflow iteration

Workflow Commands

Execute and manage AI workflows, from simple tasks to complex orchestrations with monitoring and debugging

Authentication Commands

Secure your Compozy instance with API keys, user management, and access control configuration

Configuration Commands

Validate, inspect, and troubleshoot your Compozy configuration files with diagnostic tools

MCP Commands

Integrate external tools and services through Model Context Protocol servers for extended AI capabilities

Interactive vs Automation Modes

The CLI intelligently adapts its output based on your environment, providing optimal experiences for both human operators and automated systems:

Interactive Mode: Rich terminal UI with colors, progress bars, and interactive prompts when running in a terminal - ideal for development workflows
Automation Mode: Clean JSON output with proper exit codes when running in scripts or CI/CD pipelines - perfect for automated testing

# Interactive mode (automatic in terminal)
compozy workflow list

# Force JSON output for scripts
compozy workflow list --format json

# Quiet mode for automation
compozy workflow execute my-flow --quiet --format json

See our CLI automation guide for best practices on using the CLI in automated environments, including error handling and output parsing.

Configuration and Environment

The CLI respects a configuration hierarchy with multiple sources:

Command-line flags override all other settings
Environment variables like COMPOZY_API_KEY for API authentication
Configuration files using the application schema
Default values optimized for development

Learn about environment-specific configuration and security considerations for production deployments.

Additional Resources

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