anthropics/anthropic-cli

anthropics/anthropic-cli

Description: The CLI for the Claude API

Language: Go

License: MIT

Stars: 509

Forks: 66

Open issues: 9

Created: 2026-01-23T01:47:47Z

Pushed: 2026-06-10T00:10:07Z

Default branch: main

Fork: no

Archived: no

README:

ant — Claude Platform CLI

ant is the official CLI for the Claude Platform. It puts the Claude API in your terminal — send messages, manage agents and sessions, upload files, and script against every API endpoint.


Documentation

Full documentation is available at [platform.claude.com/docs/en/api/sdks/cli](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/api/sdks/cli).

Installation

Homebrew

brew install anthropics/tap/ant

Go

To install from source, you need Go version 1.22 or later.

go install 'github.com/anthropics/anthropic-cli/cmd/ant@latest'

The binary is placed in $(go env GOPATH)/bin. If ant isn't found after installation, add that directory to your PATH:

# Add to your shell profile (.zshrc, .bashrc, etc.)
export PATH="$PATH:$(go env GOPATH)/bin"

Getting started

Log in with your Claude Console account:

ant auth login

Or set the ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable to an API key from the Claude Console.

Then send your first message:

ant messages create \
--model claude-opus-4-8 \
--max-tokens 1024 \
--message '{role: user, content: "Hello, Claude"}'

Structured flags accept relaxed JSON or YAML, so unquoted keys are fine.

Usage

The CLI follows a resource-based command structure, with nested resources separated by colons:

ant [:] [flags...]

# List available models
ant models list

# Browse a response in the interactive explorer (the default in a terminal)
ant models retrieve --model-id claude-opus-4-8

# Extract a single field from a response, jq-style
ant messages create \
--model claude-opus-4-8 \
--max-tokens 1024 \
--message '{role: user, content: "Hello, Claude"}' \
--transform content.0.text --raw-output

# Send a file using the @path syntax
ant messages create \
--model claude-opus-4-8 \
--max-tokens 1024 \
--message '{role: user, content: [
{type: image, source: {type: base64, media_type: image/jpeg, data: "@photo.jpg"}},
{type: text, text: "What is in this image?"}
]}'

# Manage beta resources such as agents, sessions, and files
ant beta:agents list

Run ant --help for the full list of resources, or append --help to any command to see its flags.

Requirements

macOS, Linux, or Windows.

Contributing

See [CONTRIBUTING.md](./CONTRIBUTING.md).

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the [LICENSE](LICENSE) file for details.