# CLI

> The planned contextatlas command-line client, for searching the catalog and detecting a project's stack from the terminal.

> **Planned.** The CLI does not exist yet; it is tracked in [issue #13](https://github.com/levin-staudt/contextatlas/issues/13). Until then, use the [MCP server](https://contextatlas.dev/docs/mcp) or the [JSON API](https://contextatlas.dev/docs/api) with curl.

`contextatlas` will bring the catalog to the terminal, for agents in clients without MCP support and for scripts.

## Planned commands

| Command | What it will do |
| --- | --- |
| `contextatlas search <query>` | Search tools and sources, like the MCP tool `search` |
| `contextatlas topic <id>` | Show all sources of one tool |
| `contextatlas detect` | Scan the current project for the catalog's signals (files, dependencies, also in workspace packages) and list the matching sources |
| `contextatlas mcp` | Run the MCP server over stdio, for clients that only start local servers |

Every command will take `--json`, so agents can parse the output reliably.

## Until then

The same answers are one curl away:

```bash
# search
curl -s 'https://contextatlas.dev/api/search?q=database'

# one tool
curl -s https://contextatlas.dev/llms/drizzle.txt
```

For stdio-only clients, the [mcp-remote bridge](https://contextatlas.dev/docs/mcp#clients-with-stdio-only) works today.