REPL Reference

Nehanda CLI provides two interfaces: an interactive Ink TUI (bin/nehanda-ui.mjs) and a headless pipe mode (bin/agent.mjs). This page documents all slash commands available in the interactive REPL.

Launching

# Interactive TUI (requires a TTY)
npm start
# or:
node bin/nehanda-ui.mjs

# Headless pipe mode (for automation)
node bin/agent.mjs

Core Commands

Command	Description
`/help`	Display all available commands
`/exit`	Exit the REPL
`/clear`	Clear conversation history and reset transcript state
`/retry`	Resend the last failed request

Provider Commands

`/model [name]`

Discover and switch the active provider or model endpoint.

❯ /model
# Lists available models from the active provider

❯ /model claude-sonnet-4-20250514
# Switches to a specific model

❯ /model ollama/deepseek-coder-v2:latest
# Switches to an Ollama model

`/key`

Save the Nehanda API key interactively.

❯ /key
New Nehanda API key: <your-key>
✓ Key saved.

Configuration Commands

`/config`

View or set settings. Supports dot-path notation for nested values.

❯ /config
# Display all current settings

❯ /config base_url https://api.example.com/v1
# Set a top-level config value

❯ /config set model_config.base_url https://api.example.com/v1
# Set a nested config value (equivalent)

❯ /config set model_config.num_ctx 8192
# Set context window size

❯ /config set permissions.defaultMode acceptEdits
# Change permission mode

Behavior:

String values are set as-is
Numeric values are auto-converted to numbers
Changes persist in the local settings database (settings_snapshot table)
The set subcommand is optional — /config key value and /config set key value are equivalent

MCP Commands

`/mcp status`

List all configured MCP servers and their commands.

❯ /mcp status
  filesystem: npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /path
  powermcp:  npx -y harvard-powermcp

`/mcp list`

Connect to each server, call tools/list, and display discovered tools.

❯ /mcp list
[filesystem]
  mcp__filesystem__read_file
  mcp__filesystem__write_file
  mcp__filesystem__list_directory
[powermcp]
  mcp__powermcp__search

`/mcp reload [server]`

Re-read mcp.json and invalidate the tool cache. If a server name is provided, only that server’s cache is busted.

❯ /mcp reload
✓ All MCP tool caches invalidated.

❯ /mcp reload powermcp
✓ MCP tool cache invalidated for: powermcp

`/mcp add <name> <command> [args...]`

❯ /mcp add filesystem npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /home/user/project
✓ Added server: filesystem
  Config file: ~/.config/nehanda/mcp.json

`/mcp env`

Manage environment variables for MCP servers.

❯ /mcp env
# Show env vars for all servers

❯ /mcp env asoba
# Show env vars for 'asoba' server

❯ /mcp env asoba ASOBA_API_KEY sk-abc123...
✓ Set ASOBA_API_KEY = ******** on asoba
  Config file: ~/.config/nehanda/mcp.json

❯ /mcp env asoba ASOBA_API_KEY
✓ Cleared ASOBA_API_KEY on asoba

Key masking: API keys are masked in output — only the first 6 and last 4 characters are shown.

Pipe Mode Commands

When stdin is not a TTY (pipe mode), the REPL is not available. Instead, use CLI flags:

echo 'Read package.json' | node bin/agent.mjs
# Runs a single turn in pipe mode

node bin/agent.mjs --eval '{"tool":"Read","input":{"file_path":"package.json"}}'
# Execute a single tool and exit

node bin/agent.mjs --transition test --conversation <id>
# Transition phase and exit

node bin/agent.mjs --init-db
# Initialize database and exit

See Pipe Mode for full details.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
`AGENT_SDLC_DB`	SQLite database path (default: `~/.config/nehanda/ona-session.db`)
`NEHANDA_API_KEY`	API key for Nehanda Cloud
`NEHANDA_BASE_URL`	Base URL for Nehanda Cloud (default: `https://nehanda-ml.asoba.co/v1`)
`OPENAI_API_KEY`	API key for OpenAI-compatible providers
`OPENAI_BASE_URL`	Base URL for OpenAI-compatible providers
`OLLAMA_BASE_URL`	Base URL for Ollama (default: `http://localhost:11434/v1`)
`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	API key for Anthropic Claude
`ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN`	Bearer token for Anthropic OAuth
`SDLC_DISABLE_ALL_HOOKS`	Set to `1` to skip all hooks