Taskless CLI

The Taskless CLI (@taskless/cli) manages rules, runs checks, and installs the agent skill. It ships as an npm package and runs via npx without a global install.

For Humans and For Agents

For humans: run npx @taskless/cli (no args) to install or update Taskless in this repository.
For agents: the installed skill is a thin router. When an agent needs to act, it runs npx @taskless/cli help <topic> to fetch the canonical recipe (Goal, Preconditions, Steps, Schema, Errors, See Also) and follows it.

The docs site covers the human-facing surface. For the full machine-readable recipe behind any sub-command, run npx @taskless/cli help <topic>.

Quick Start

npx @taskless/cli info

Topics

Most CLI topics have a corresponding help recipe. Run npx @taskless/cli help <topic> for the full recipe.

Commands:

Topic	Summary
`init`	Install or update the Taskless skill in detected tools (interactive)
`update`	Non-interactive equivalent of `init`
`info`	Show CLI version, installed tools, and auth status
`detect`	Scan the repo for configured linters, languages, and rule styles (offline)
`check`	Run rules against your codebase
`auth`	Manage authentication with taskless.io
`rule`	Create, improve, and delete rules
`onboard`	Guided post-install pass that surfaces rule candidates from your project

Authoring recipes. Where a new rule is authored and routed, plus wiring checks into CI (see Authoring Rules):

Topic	Summary
`route`	Decide where a rule is authored (existing / static / remote)
`existing`	Author a rule in a linter the repo already uses
`static`	Author a local ast-grep rule on this machine (no login)
`remote`	Generate a rule via the Taskless service (login)
`ci`	Wire `taskless check` into your CI (see Continuous Integration)

Run npx @taskless/cli detect --json to see the repo scan detect produces, or npx @taskless/cli help detect for its recipe. Run npx @taskless/cli help (no args) for the live topic list.

The `--anonymous` Flag

--anonymous is a top-level flag accepted on every command. It forces local-only behavior on rule create and rule improve (skipping the Taskless API), makes check run only static rules (skipping runtime rules), is a no-op on most other commands, and errors on auth login. Pass it to keep everything on-device without sending anything to taskless.io.

Error Output

When you pass --json and a command fails, the CLI emits a stable error shape with a code field (e.g., AUTH_REQUIRED, NO_GITHUB_REMOTE, RULE_GENERATION_FAILED). Recipes can branch on this code without parsing prose. For the per-topic error catalog, see the Errors section in npx @taskless/cli help <topic>.