CLI reference

Start a chat

Running ene without a subcommand starts an interactive chat with the first model configured in ~/.ene.yaml:

ene
ene --model gpt
bash

The explicit form is equivalent:

ene chat --model gpt
bash

Chat options are:

Option	Meaning
--model ALIAS	Select a model alias from ~/.ene.yaml.
--persona NAME	Start with a discovered persona.
--verbose	Show detailed output.
--stream / --no-stream	Enable or disable response-token streaming; streaming is the default.
--reasoning-effort LEVEL	Override effort with none, minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh, or max.
--resume [SESSION_ID]	Resume a specific session, or omit the ID to choose interactively.

Top-level commands

Command	Purpose
ene chat [OPTIONS]	Start an interactive chat.
ene list	List configured model aliases and resolved defaults.
ene status	Show disk usage for entries under the current project's .ene/.
ene clean [--history] [ENTRY ...]	Remove disposable project state or selected entries; --history also removes sessions.
ene hub --web-port PORT	Run the shared Web UI hub; the default port is 8765.
ene update	Update Ene from its editable checkout or reinstall the latest GitHub source.
ene lib --help	Manage the Git-backed library of skills and personas.

A default ene clean removes disposable state such as tool results, scratch data, caches, and other unrecognized entries. It preserves project instructions, authored skills and personas, conversation sessions, batch results, and orchestrator state. Use ene clean --history to also remove saved conversation sessions. Naming entries explicitly removes those entries regardless of the defaults. Check ene status before cleaning state you may need.

See Library for the complete ene lib workflow.

Interactive slash commands

The agent supports the following slash commands while chatting:

Command	Description
/help	Show help message for all slash commands
/context [id]	List context messages, or show one message's exact content and metadata in full
/system_prompt	Print the current full system prompt
/compact	Force context compaction via LLM summarization
/recap	Summarize the conversation's task in one sentence, focusing on user requests
/continue	Resume an unfinished round without adding a user message; warns if the last round is complete (output-limit, missing-terminal, and empty responses continue automatically, except a response truncated mid tool call, whose calls are answered as never executed so the history stays valid)
/usage	Show token usage for this session
/ps [process-id]	List managed background processes, or show one process with recent output
/model [name]	Show or switch LLM model mid-session
/login [provider|model-alias]	Authenticate an OAuth provider; defaults to the current provider
/logout [provider|model-alias]	Remove stored OAuth credentials
/auth [provider|model-alias]	Show authentication status
/effort [level]	Show or set reasoning effort (none, minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh, or max)
/rewind	Return to before a user prompt, restore it to the chatbox, then branch
/skills	List installed skills; /skills reload to re-scan; /skills <name> to load one
/<skill-name> [task]	Invoke a skill for an optional task; without one, run its declared default or ask what to do
/persona	List personas; /persona <name> to switch (restarts the conversation)
/wait <duration> <prompt>	Send a prompt after a delay, e.g. /wait 1h check whether the other agent finished
/clear	Clear conversation history and start a new session
/resume [session_id]	Save the current session, then resume a previous one (bare /resume picks interactively)
/exit or /quit	Exit the agent

To use smaller models for summaries, set model aliases in ~/.ene.yaml:

recap_model: fast    # model used by /recap
summary_model: fast  # model used by automatic and /compact compaction
yaml

Both values refer to entries under openai. If either setting is omitted, that operation uses the active chat model. Recaps and compaction summaries count toward session token usage; recaps are not added to conversation history.

Bash shortcut

Prefix a command with ! to run it directly without involving the model:

!ls -la
!git diff

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
Enter	Send message
Escape → Enter	Insert a newline
Ctrl+C (non-empty prompt)	Clear the current input
Ctrl+C (empty prompt, twice)	Exit the agent
Ctrl+C / Esc (during API call)	Cancel the in-flight request

Tool execution

All tools execute automatically; ene has no permission modes, confirmation prompts, or command screening. It is not a security boundary and does not attempt to contain what a model runs — use an OS-level sandbox or container when commands must be constrained, and review a task before handing it to an autonomous agent.