Build on Chief — MCP server, REST API, and CLI

The chief CLI puts your whole Chief project in your terminal. Ask a question and read the answer rendered in place, upload a folder of documents, schedule an automation, or pull raw JSON into a script — without writing any API code. It renders styled output at a prompt and switches to machine-readable JSON when piped or run with --json, so the same command works at a prompt, in a script, in CI, and behind an AI coding agent. New to it? The quickstart below gets you from install to your first answer in three commands.

chief chats create rendering a two-bullet summary in the terminal — Ask a question and get a rendered answer, right from your terminal.

Install

Homebrew is the recommended install on macOS:

brew install --cask Storytell-ai/tap/chief

go install github.com/Storytell-ai/chief-cli/cmd/chief@latest

git clone https://github.com/Storytell-ai/chief-cli.git
cd chief-cli
go build -o bin/chief ./cmd/chief

The Go and source options require a Go toolchain. go install puts a chief binary in $(go env GOPATH)/bin — make sure that directory is on your PATH. Prebuilt binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows (amd64 and arm64) are on the releases page. Verify the install:

chief --version

Update

brew upgrade --cask Storytell-ai/tap/chief

go install github.com/Storytell-ai/chief-cli/cmd/chief@latest

For a prebuilt binary, download the newer archive and replace the binary on your PATH.

Quickstart

# 1. Authenticate (prompts for base URL, API key, and project).
chief login

# 2. Confirm everything resolves and the API is reachable.
chief doctor

# 3. Ask a question.
chief chats create "What changed in my project this week?"

chief login asks for your API key and project id. Create a token in the Chief app under Settings → API tokens — see Introduction for where to find both. Already have an API key and project id? Skip the prompts:

chief login --api-key "$CHIEF_API_KEY" --project project_d8a4td4dib27i4beefb0

Run chief --help at any time to see every command — each maps to a Chief API resource:

chief --help output listing the top-level commands and global flags — chief --help lists every command, each mapping to a Chief API resource.

Authentication & configuration

chief authenticates with a Chief API key (a Personal Access Token) scoped to a project. Settings resolve with the precedence flag > environment variable > saved credentials > built-in default, evaluated independently for each value.

Setting	Flag	Environment variable	Default
API key	`--api-key`	`CHIEF_API_KEY`	—
Project	`--project`	`CHIEF_PROJECT_ID`	—
Base URL	`--base-url`	`CHIEF_BASE_URL`	`https://api.storytell.ai`

chief login verifies the key against the API and writes it to a credentials file at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/chief/credentials.json (or ~/.config/chief/credentials.json when XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset). The file holds a secret, so it is created with 0600 permissions inside a 0700 directory. chief doctor reports where each effective setting came from, whether the credentials file is parseable and correctly permissioned, and whether the API is reachable:

chief doctor output showing configuration sources and a reachable API — chief doctor shows each setting, its source, and whether the API is reachable.

Shell completion

chief ships completions for bash, zsh, fish, and PowerShell. Generate a script with chief completion <shell> and load it from your shell profile — for zsh:

chief completion zsh > "${fpath[1]}/_chief"

Run chief completion --help for the per-shell install steps.

Output & scripting

Every command renders styled, human-readable output on a terminal and switches to JSON when you add --json or pipe the output. JSON is pretty-printed on a TTY and compact when piped, so it composes cleanly with tools like jq.

# Pretty table on a terminal.
chief assets list

# Stable JSON for scripts.
chief assets list --json | jq -r '.data[] | select(.status=="failed") | .asset_id'

# Capture the new chat's id without waiting for the answer.
chief chats create "Kick off analysis" --no-wait --json | jq -r '.chat_id'

Commands exit 0 on success and non-zero on failure. Delete commands prompt for confirmation on an interactive terminal; pass --force (or -f) to skip the prompt, which is also the default when output is piped or --json is set. Set ACCESSIBLE=1 to degrade interactive prompts to plain text for screen readers.

Continuous integration

chief runs unattended in CI. Pass credentials as environment variables rather than flags — flags can leak into process listings and build logs:

export CHIEF_API_KEY="$CHIEF_API_KEY"      # from your CI secret store
export CHIEF_PROJECT_ID="project_d8a4td4dib27i4beefb0"

chief assets upload ./docs --json

Output is non-interactive automatically when piped or --json is set: confirmation prompts are skipped and JSON is emitted compact.
A non-zero exit on any command fails the step, so failures surface in the job.
Override CHIEF_BASE_URL to run the same commands against a different API base URL.

Raw API access

chief api sends an authenticated request to any endpoint and prints the JSON response. Authentication and content-type headers are applied for you — useful for endpoints the CLI doesn’t yet wrap, or for debugging.

chief api GET /v1/projects
chief api POST /v1/labels --body '{"name":"Urgent","color":"#e24b4a"}'
chief api POST /v1/labels --body @label.json    # read the body from a file

Add --debug to any command to dump the full HTTP request and response.

Global flags

These persistent flags apply to every command:

Flag	Description
`--api-key`	Chief API key (env `CHIEF_API_KEY`)
`--project`	Project id (env `CHIEF_PROJECT_ID`)
`--base-url`	API base URL (env `CHIEF_BASE_URL`; default `https://api.storytell.ai`)
`--insecure`	Skip TLS certificate verification (local dev only)
`--json`	Emit machine-readable JSON
`--debug`	Dump HTTP requests and responses
`--no-color`	Disable colored output

Next steps

Command reference — every command, grouped by resource
MCP server — generate client config with chief mcp config

Overview

CLI

Go SDK

CLI overview

Install

Update

Quickstart

Authentication & configuration

Shell completion

Output & scripting

Continuous integration

Raw API access

Global flags

Next steps

​Install

​Update

​Quickstart

​Authentication & configuration

​Shell completion

​Output & scripting

​Continuous integration

​Raw API access

​Global flags

​Next steps

Install

Update

Quickstart

Authentication & configuration

Shell completion

Output & scripting

Continuous integration

Raw API access

Global flags

Next steps