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Beyond the raw REST API, Chief ships three first-party tools. All three authenticate with a Personal Access Token (pat_…) and scope to a project, the same as direct API calls.

Go SDK

Typed Go client with one service per resource. Zero third-party dependencies.

CLI

The chief command — styled output at a prompt, JSON in scripts and CI.

MCP server

Point Claude, Cursor, or Codex at your Chief project over MCP.

Which one to use

You want to…Use
Build a Go service or automationGo SDK
Script Chief, run it in CI, or drive it from a shellCLI
Give a coding agent access to your projectMCP server
Call from another languageThe REST API directly

Before you start

You need a Chief account and two credentials, used by all three tools:
  1. A Personal Access Token (pat_…) — create one in the Chief app under Settings → API tokens.
  2. Your project id (project_…) — the project the tool reads from and writes to.
See Introduction for where to find both.

Install

The CLI and MCP server are distributed as single static binaries. Homebrew is the recommended install on macOS:
brew install --cask Storytell-ai/tap/chief
brew install --cask Storytell-ai/tap/chief-mcp
The Go SDK is a library — add it to a module with go get:
go get github.com/Storytell-ai/chief-go/chief
The go options above require a Go toolchain.

Feature availability

The tools expose every Chief resource, but the public API backs some of them today and the rest are rolling out.
Available now: chats, assets, and labels.Rolling out: actions, skills, memories, live sessions, and projects. These require the latest Chief API release. Commands and methods for them are documented but may return errors until the rollout completes.

Shared configuration

Every tool reads the same three settings from flags, options, or the environment:
SettingEnvironment variableNotes
API keyCHIEF_API_KEYPersonal Access Token (pat_…), sent as X-API-Key. Required.
ProjectCHIEF_PROJECT_IDSent as X-Project-Id. Required for project-scoped resources.
Base URLCHIEF_BASE_URLDefaults to https://api.storytell.ai.
See Introduction for how to create a token.