Claude-Code-Monitor/docs/CLI.md

ccam CLI Reference

The complete guide to ccam, the Claude Code Agent Monitor command-line interface — the full dashboard feature surface, in your terminal.

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Table of Contents

• Overview
• Installation & Linking
• Server Discovery
• Commands
  • Server Lifecycle
  • Interactive REPL
  • Offline Mode
  • Monitoring
  • Data Browsing
  • Insights
  • Alerts & Webhooks
  • Pricing
  • Import
  • Remote Sources
  • Lanes
  • Administration
• Safety Model
• Output & Scripting
• Troubleshooting

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Overview

ccam (bin/ccam.js) is a dependency-free Node.js CLI over the local dashboard API. Everything the web app can do — monitoring, browsing, analytics, alerting, pricing, imports, administration — is available as a terminal command. It ships with the repository, requires no additional install step beyond the normal project setup, and talks only to your local dashboard server.

ccam <command> [options]

flowchart LR
    U["Terminal\nccam <command>"] --> CLI["bin/ccam.js\n(zero dependencies)"]
    CLI -->|"env override"| ENV["CLAUDE_DASHBOARD_PORT /\nDASHBOARD_PORT"]
    CLI -->|"else discovery"| REG["~/.claude/.agent-dashboard.json\n(PID-liveness-checked)"]
    CLI -->|"else fallback"| DEF["http://127.0.0.1:4820"]
    ENV --> API["Dashboard REST API"]
    REG --> API
    DEF --> API
    API --> OUT["Box-drawn tables / status icons / bar charts /\nplain text when piped"]

Installation & Linking

npm run setup ends with a fail-soft npm link (the link-cli script), so after a normal local setup ccam is on your PATH from any directory:

git clone https://git.smartgift.io.vn/Smartgift-AI/Claude-Code-Monitor.git
cd Claude-Code-Agent-Monitor
npm run setup     # installs deps AND links ccam globally
ccam help

If linking needed elevated permissions in your environment, setup still succeeds and prints a hint — run npm link once from the repo root yourself, or invoke the CLI directly with node bin/ccam.js <command>.

Server Discovery

The CLI finds your running dashboard the same way the Claude Code hook handler does:

Priority	Source	Notes
1	CLAUDE_DASHBOARD_PORT / DASHBOARD_PORT env vars	Explicit override wins
2	~/.claude/.agent-dashboard.json	Written by every running dashboard ({port, pid, startedAt} entries); stale entries are skipped via a PID liveness check
3	http://127.0.0.1:4820	Default port fallback

If no server answers, every API-backed command exits 1 with the ○ Dashboard server is NOT running indicator and the ways to start one (see Server Lifecycle).

Commands

Server Lifecycle

The CLI talks to the local dashboard server — API-backed commands require it to be running. When it isn't, every such command prints a consistent indicator and exits 1:

○ Dashboard server is NOT running (tried http://127.0.0.1:4820)
  This command needs the server. Start it with one of:
    ccam start        # production server in the background
    npm run dev       # dev mode (hot reload), foreground
    npm start         # production mode, foreground

Command	Description
ccam status	At-a-glance up/down indicator (● running / ○ not running); exits 1 when down
ccam start [--port N]	Start the production server in the background (detached; survives closing the terminal), wait up to 30 s for /api/health, print the URL + PID and the kill <pid> stop command. Logs append to data/ccam-server.log. No-ops with a pointer when a server is already up. Requires a built client (npm run build once)
ccam repl (aliases shell, i)	Open the interactive shell — see Interactive REPL

Interactive REPL

ccam repl (also ccam shell / ccam i) opens a persistent prompt where you type commands without the ccam prefix — ideal for a monitoring session where you run sessions, drill into a session <id>, check kanban, then cost, without re-typing ccam each time. On entry it prints a CCAM word-mark welcome banner with the version and live server status.

          _____                    _____                    _____                    _____
         /\    \                  /\    \                  /\    \                  /\    \
        /::\    \                /::\    \                /::\    \                /::\____\
        …  (CCAM word-mark)  …
  Claude Code Agent Monitor · interactive shell · v1.3.0   ● 127.0.0.1:4820
  Type commands without the 'ccam' prefix — e.g. sessions --limit 5
  help all commands · help <cmd> details · Tab completes · ↑/↓ history · exit to quit

● ccam 127.0.0.1:4820 › sessions --limit 3
… table …
○ ccam offline › stats        # prompt dot turns red when the server is down

• Live status prompt — a green ● + resolved host when the server is up, a red ○ + offline when it isn't (probed with a short, cached health check).

• Tab completion for commands, subcommands (alerts ack, pricing set, …), and flags (--limit, --status, …).

• Arrow-key history, persisted across sessions to data/.ccam_repl_history.

• Full command surface — every command in this reference works inside the shell exactly as on the one-shot CLI (they are dispatched as child ccam processes).

• Shell built-ins:

  Built-in	Description
  help / ?	Shell built-ins plus the full grouped command catalog
  help <command>	Details (invocation + description) for one command
  commands	Compact list of every command, grouped by category
  watch [seconds] <command …>	Re-run a command on a timer (default 2 s), clearing the screen each tick, until Ctrl+C — a terminal live view (e.g. watch 5 kanban)
  history	Recent command history
  banner	Reprint the welcome banner
  clear / cls	Clear the screen
  exit / quit / q	Leave the shell (also Ctrl+D)

• Robust isolation — each entered line runs as a short-lived child ccam process, so a non-zero exit, an offline refusal, or a blocking tail / watch (both stop on Ctrl+C) can never take the shell down with it. Offline reads and server-only refusals behave exactly as they do on the one-shot CLI.

• Works with piped input too (printf 'stats\nexit\n' | ccam repl) for scripting, running each line in order and exiting at EOF.

Offline Mode

When the server is down, read-only commands automatically fall back to reading data/dashboard.db directly (SQLite; a safe second reader). Every offline run starts with a banner:

⚠ Offline mode — server not running; reading data/dashboard.db directly.
  Data is as of the last capture — live capture and full features need the server: ccam start

Works offline	Server required (with the printed reason)
sessions, session <id>*, agents, events, kanban, stats, pricing (list), alerts (list), rules, export, doctor	tail (live capture), analytics / workflows / runs / cost (server-side aggregation & pricing math), alerts ack, webhooks (all), pricing set/delete/reset, import, remote-sources (all — SSH pull needs the server), cleanup, clear-data, reinstall-hooks, update-check (server-side git fetch), info, health

* session <id> shows everything except the cost line, which requires the server's pricing engine. Offline export payloads carry "exported_offline": true. Offline data is as of the last capture — with no server running, no hooks are being ingested either.

Status correctness offline: while the server is down its dead-session liveness reap isn't running, so the DB can hold active/waiting rows for sessions that have since exited. Offline output therefore runs the same process-liveness probe the server's watchdog uses and corrects the displayed status of any active session whose cwd has no running claude process (footnote: ※ N session(s) displayed as completed by the process-liveness probe) — the database itself is never modified. Where the probe can't answer (Windows, containers), a ※ Statuses are as stored… caveat is printed instead whenever active rows are shown.

Monitoring

Command	Description
ccam health	One-line reachability check with the resolved URL and server timestamp
ccam stats	Totals (sessions, agents, events), today's event count, WS connections, and the sessions-by-status distribution
ccam kanban	The Kanban board as text: sessions grouped into Active / Waiting / Completed / Error / Abandoned and agents into Working / Waiting / Completed / Error, with current tools
ccam tail [--session <id>]	Live event feed — polls /api/events every 2 s and prints only new rows (the Activity Feed without a WebSocket client). Ctrl+C stops

Data Browsing

Command	Description
ccam sessions [--status s] [--q text] [--limit n]	Server-filtered session table: short ID, status, name, agent count, duration, model, relative last-update
ccam session <id>	Deep dive: metadata card, per-session cost, a parent→child agent tree (├─/└─) with live tools, and the most recent events
ccam agents [--status s] [--session id] [--limit n]	Agent table with type, current tool, and duration
ccam events [--session id] [--limit n]	Newest-first event log with type, tool, and summary

Insights

Command	Description
ccam analytics	Token totals (input / output / cache read / cache write), top tools by call count, agent-type distribution, average events per session
ccam workflows [--session id]	Workflow-intelligence stats (sessions analyzed, subagents, success rate, depth, compactions) and the top detected patterns; --session drills into one session
ccam runs [--session id]	Dynamic Workflow-tool runs: status, agent count, tokens, tool calls, duration
ccam cost [--session <id>]	Total estimated cost with a per-model bar-chart breakdown; --session scopes it to one session (mirrors /api/pricing/cost/:sessionId). Any billed server-tool surcharges (web search $/1k, code-execution container-time) are shown on a surcharges line. Models with usage but no matching pricing rule (priced at $0 and excluded from the total) are listed in a warning with their token volume and the ccam pricing set invocation that fixes it

Alerts & Webhooks

Command	Description
ccam alerts [--unacked] [--limit n]	Fired-alert feed with state, trigger time, rule, and message
ccam alerts ack <id>	Acknowledge one alert
ccam alerts ack-all	Acknowledge every unacknowledged alert
ccam rules	Alert rules with enabled state, type, and cooldown
ccam webhooks	Webhook targets (URLs masked server-side, secrets never returned)
ccam webhooks test <id>	Fire a synthetic test alert at a target and report the delivery result; exits non-zero on failure

Pricing

Command	Description
ccam pricing	All model pricing rules with per-mtok rates, including Fast In/Out and Intro In/Out columns for fast-mode premiums and time-limited promo pricing
ccam pricing set <pattern> --input N --output N [--cache-read N] [--cache-write N] [--cache-write-1h N] [--name label]	Create or update a rule (SQL LIKE pattern, e.g. claude-opus-4-6%)
ccam pricing set <pattern> … [--fast-input N] [--fast-output N]	Also set fast-mode premium rates on the rule
ccam pricing set <pattern> … [--intro-input N] [--intro-output N] [--intro-cache-read N] [--intro-cache-write N] [--intro-cache-write-1h N] --intro-until YYYY-MM-DD	Set a time-limited introductory (promo) rate block. The intro fields are only sent when an --intro-* flag is present, so a plain rate edit never clobbers an existing promo; a bare --intro-until (no date) clears it
ccam pricing delete <pattern>	Delete a rule
ccam pricing reset	Restore the default rate table

Import

Command	Description
ccam import rescan	Re-scan the default ~/.claude/projects tree (idempotent; prints imported / backfilled / skipped / errors)
ccam import path <dir>	Recursively import every .jsonl under an absolute directory (~ is expanded server-side)
ccam import-data <file.json>	Restore a full dashboard export produced by ccam export (or Settings → Export data). Idempotent and non-destructive — sessions already present are skipped whole, so it safely consolidates several machines into one dashboard. The file path is resolved to absolute and read server-side

Remote Sources

Manage the remote (SSH) machines this dashboard pulls Claude Code history from — the terminal equivalent of Settings → Remote Data Sources. Authentication defers entirely to your SSH stack (~/.ssh/config, ssh-agent, keys, known_hosts); no secrets are passed or stored. remotes is an alias for remote-sources.

Command	Description
ccam remote-sources (alias remotes)	List configured sources with id, auto-sync on/off, status, label, host, session count, and last-sync time, followed by a totals line (sources / auto-syncing / sessions collected)
ccam remote-sources add --label <name> --host <user@host> [--port N] [--identity <path>] [--remote-home <path>] [--disabled]	Add a source. --host is an ssh destination (user@host) or a ~/.ssh/config alias; --disabled skips it in the background poller
ccam remote-sources test <id>	Probe SSH connectivity and check the remote ~/.claude/projects exists; exits non-zero on failure
ccam remote-sources sync [id]	Pull history now — one source by id, or all sources when the id is omitted. Prints imported / tagged counts
ccam remote-sources rm <id> [--purge]	Remove a source (its imported sessions are detached back to local by default; --purge also deletes them)

Lanes

A lane is a durable unit of parallel agent work — one working directory, many sessions over time. Full guide: docs/LANES.md.

Command	Description
ccam lanes	List lanes with stage, status, liveness and progress
ccam lanes add --cwd <path> --title <text>	Adopt an existing directory as a lane
ccam lanes add --repo <path> [--title <text>] [--base <branch>] [--slug <slug>]	Provision a dashboard-managed git worktree as a new lane
ccam lanes profile init <repo> [--force]	Detect a Node.js project (single-service or backend+frontend monorepo) and scaffold .ccam/profile/. Refuses to overwrite an existing one without --force
ccam lanes profile check [<path>]	Validate a profile — parses, every referenced hook exists and is executable, no leftover TODO:, declared ports free. <path> defaults to the current directory (not a lane id)
ccam lanes reset|remove|purge <id> [--force] [--keep-db] --yes	Show preflight facts, then perform a destructive action. Refuses without --yes; --force is required when commits are unpushed; --keep-db (reset only) skips dropping/recreating a data-isolated lane's database
ccam stage <stage> [--evidence <text>] [--note <text>] [--result pass|fail]	Declare the lane's current pipeline stage. Called by a skill at each phase boundary

Runtime — the lane's own application stack, as opposed to start/stop, which drive its Claude run. Two lifecycles, one lane id. Each requires the repository to declare a profile at <repo>/.ccam/profile/ (contract); without one they report that nothing is configured rather than failing.

Command	Description
ccam lanes up [<id>] [--no-build]	Boot the stack through the profile's boot + health hooks, then poll until it is healthy or the boot fails. --no-build reuses an existing build
ccam lanes down [<id>]	Stop the stack. Idempotent, and a no-op for a lane that was never up
ccam lanes runtime [<id>]	Slot, ports (flagging any that stepped aside from its base), the lane's database name and Redis index when its profile declares them (see Data isolation), per-service liveness, log paths, and the last boot error
ccam lanes logs [<id>] <service> [--tail N]	Tail one service or hook log (--tail in bytes, default 64 KiB)
ccam lanes hook [<id>] <name> [args…]	Run one of the profile's hooks: bootstrap, boot, health, migrate, seed, ci-gate, e2e, regen, db-create, db-drop

Omit <id> and the command addresses the lane owning the current directory, so a session running inside a lane never needs to know its own id. Only a leading all-digits argument is read as an id — ccam lanes logs web --tail 4096 addresses the lane by directory, not lane 4096.

Because a lane's services are fully detached, restarting the dashboard (or ccam update) never stops a running stack.

Administration

Command	Description
ccam doctor	Diagnosis: API reachability, hook installation status + path, database path/size/row counts, server uptime and Node version, WS connections
ccam info	The raw /api/settings/info JSON (pipe it to jq)
ccam export [file.json]	Full JSON data export (sessions, agents, events, tokens, workflows, dashboard runs, alert rules, pricing) — defaults to a dated filename. Re-importable via ccam import-data
ccam cleanup --hours N --days M	Abandon active sessions idle for N hours and/or purge completed sessions older than M days
ccam reinstall-hooks	Rewrite the Claude Code hook entries in ~/.claude/settings.json
ccam update-check	Ask the server whether the dashboard checkout is behind the canonical remote (branch- and fork-aware). Prints the behind-by count, a situation note for fork/feature-branch checkouts, and the copy-paste update command — the dashboard never restarts itself. Also refreshes the update banner in any open dashboard tab (same update_status broadcast)
ccam clear-data --yes	Delete all data (schema preserved). Refuses to run without --yes
ccam open	Open the dashboard in your default browser (open / xdg-open / start)
ccam version	Print the ccam version (also --version / -v)
ccam help	Full command reference (also shown with no arguments)

Safety Model

• Read commands are always safe — they only issue GETs.
• Mutating commands (alerts ack, pricing set/delete/reset, import, cleanup, reinstall-hooks) map 1:1 to explicit dashboard actions and run immediately, exactly like clicking the equivalent button.
• The one destructive command, clear-data, refuses to run without --yes and prints exactly what it would delete. There is no bulk-destructive behavior anywhere else.

Output & Scripting

The CLI renders a full terminal UI while staying 100% script-friendly:

• Box-drawn tables with bold headers, right-aligned numeric columns, and terminal-width fitting — over-wide columns are clipped with an ellipsis so the frame never wraps mid-row.
• Status icons + colors everywhere a status appears: ● active (green), ◐ working (green), ○ waiting (yellow), ✔ completed (dim), ✖ error (red), ◦ abandoned (dim).
• Inline bar charts for the sessions-by-status distribution (stats), top tools and agent types (analytics), and the per-model cost breakdown (cost).
• Real tree rendering (├─/└─ with continuation rails) for the agent hierarchy in session <id>, and status lanes with branch rows in kanban.
• Session tables include a relative Updated column (4m ago) so freshness is visible at a glance; event types are color-coded consistently across events, tail, and session <id>.
• ccam start animates a spinner on a TTY (dot-trail when piped).

Color rules (informal CLI conventions):

Condition	Effect
stdout is a TTY	Colors on
Output piped / redirected	Colors off automatically — ccam sessions | grep error and ccam info | jq .db.counts see plain text
NO_COLOR=1 env or --no-color anywhere on the command line	Colors off
FORCE_COLOR=1 or CCAM_COLOR=1	Colors on even when piped (useful under watch/CI)

• ccam version (also --version / -v) prints the package version.
• Exit codes: 0 success, 1 for unreachable server, API errors, usage errors, unknown commands, or a failed webhooks test — safe to use in scripts and CI.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
○ Dashboard server is NOT running	Start it: ccam start (background), npm run dev, or npm start. If it runs on a custom port, set DASHBOARD_PORT or rely on the discovery file
ccam: command not found	Run npm link from the repo root (setup's fail-soft link may have skipped on permissions), or use node bin/ccam.js …
Wrong server answers (multiple dashboards)	Set CLAUDE_DASHBOARD_PORT explicitly — env overrides always beat discovery
tail shows nothing	Events only flow while hooks are installed and a Claude Code session is active — check ccam doctor