The console

clankie with no arguments starts the service if it is not already running and opens the fullscreen operator console. The chat surface is pi's own: a scrollable transcript of messages and tool executions above an editor docked to the bottom of the terminal, with Clankie's chrome around it — the banner, slash-command typeahead, guided setup flows, and the Ctrl+/ command workbench. It runs in an ordinary terminal or inside a terminal multiplexer; Herdr is the supported fleet integration.

The console talks to one backend, the local service on 127.0.0.1:4310, over the same HTTP API every other surface uses. Plain prompts go through the operator-conversation contract; the slash commands below configure, observe, and navigate. Every configuration command is also a headless CLI command with JSON on stdout, so anything the console can set, an agent or script can set too.

Slash commands

Type / for the typeahead, Ctrl+/ for the workbench, or $ at a token boundary for the skill picker. /skill-name task invokes a loaded skill directly. This table is generated from the console's own command registry.

Keys

Workspaces

Where clankie is typed decides the scope of the fresh room it creates (ADR 0104). A launch outside this repository creates a conversation for that project — its checkout root, or the directory itself when it is not a checkout — and the captain's session runs its tools there. A launch inside this repository opens a fresh global conversation whose session works in this repository. Use --chat <conversationId> to resume instead.

/cd <path> moves to the newest retained conversation for another project, opening its first on first visit; /cd alone names the current one. The console's own ! shell escape, path completion, footer, and /status follow the same directory. The process keeps its selection in memory rather than persisting a second session pointer.

The service retains recent inactive conversation directories for explicit resume: at most 64 conversations, 30 days of inactivity, and 256 MiB. A conversation's public replay log retains at most 500 events. Active, newly created, and default-global conversations are protected from automatic removal.

The service stays up when a console exits, so sibling Herdr panes do not disconnect each other. Logs live under ${XDG_STATE_HOME:-~/.local/state}/clankie/ rather than entering the fullscreen display.

Operator behavior

• Enter sends a prompt or steers Clankie's active Pi turn. Alt+Enter queues a separate follow-up after the current turn and any earlier queued prompts. The console keeps observing until all accepted inputs settle; Esc interrupts the current turn. These choices also apply to /skill-name prompts.
• Failed sends return the message to the editor, preserving any newer draft. A failure before sending says Message not sent. If the send loses its acknowledgement, Delivery unconfirmed asks you to check the conversation before retrying. Sends never retry automatically; an accepted turn's dropped observation reconnects without resending its message.
• /conversation opens a searchable dialog for his own retained conversations — the global and workspace threads this console holds, never a fleet agent's DM thread or a channel; /conversation <name-or-path> switches directly, and --chat <conversationId> still addresses any conversation by id. /chat remains an alias. Press x to close the highlighted inactive conversation; active and default conversations stay protected. Switching rebuilds the visible transcript from the retained conversation log, then continues from the console's bounded replay cursor; it never creates a device-local session.
• /new [title] starts and selects a conversation with fresh model context in the current workspace. The previous conversation remains available through /conversation.
• /btw [question] (alias /side) opens an ephemeral side conversation from the current Pi branch on a clean screen at the fork boundary. Its inherited history is reference-only. Ctrl+X switches between the fork and the main thread while both stay alive; Ctrl+C discards the fork and restores the main transcript. The footer names the open side conversation from either side.
• /goal shows the selected conversation's durable goal. /goal <objective> starts one; --tokens <n> gives it a hard model-token budget, and pause|resume|clear remain owner controls. Clankie proposes goals in chat; proposals do not activate themselves.
• /autonomy on|off controls autonomous goal continuations and scheduled self-wakes globally. /autonomy clear removes the selected conversation's pending wake without changing its goal.
• /cd opens the conversation for another directory and moves the console's shell escape and completion with it.
• Type /skill-name for direct skill invocation or $ at a token boundary for the skill picker. The transcript records a compact skill loaded receipt.
• /activity shows the current goal, commentary, intent, observed outcome, and the loopback watch URL without controlling the body.
• /games opens a toggle dialog for PokeAgent play; press Enter to enable or disable it. /games on|off remains available for direct use. Restart Clankie to apply a change. Saves live with the world server, not here.
• /memory browses and edits episodes and permitted Discord person facts through operator-only APIs.
• /vt (aliases /voice-log, /voice-transcripts) opens a live overlay of retained Discord voice transcripts. Ctrl+Shift+V toggles the same view; Esc or /vt off closes it. Exact speech appears only when discord.voiceTranscriptLoggingEnabled is on (ADR 0121); otherwise the overlay points at /discord. This is not /trace: voice lanes there are captain handoffs, not the Discord conversation.
• /status renders clankie status, then adds console presence, conversation, workspace, model context, activity availability, and the Herdr pane roster. /doctor renders the same install report as clankie doctor.
• /board, /board focus, and /board close manage the herdr-lead companion board. A seated turn receives the current agent census.
• /connect configures Linear and email and can open Discord setup; use direct /discord for the complete lab-user opt-in flow and either body's non-secret ids (ADR 0093).
• /auth writes provider keys and OAuth credentials to the credential broker. /auth status may also report compatibility provider environment fallbacks; Discord and body credentials remain broker-only except documented operator/captain test overrides.
• /voice selects OpenAI Realtime, Grok Voice, or OpenAI plus ElevenLabs and configures the active model, voice, xAI reasoning effort, and brokered API keys. /voice status shows the effective settings and environment overrides.
• YouTube music is an ordinary prompt, not a slash command. Audible playback is on the active Discord body's Vox primary-voice role; see the Discord media guide.
• /provider, /model, and /effort select the captain through the launcher command modules. The header carries the effective Pi model and effort after subscription routing, effective-ref variant precedence, and model-supported clamping. /image-model and /video-model select generation models. Non-secret model configuration lives in ~/.config/clankie/clankie.json.
• /provider → "add a local endpoint…" declares an OpenAI-compatible local runtime (ds4, Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM) by base URL, reads its model list from GET {baseURL}/models, and needs no credential. The service picks the new provider up on clankie restart captain. Agents and scripts use the same write path through clankie model add-local / clankie model set (JSON on stdout); do not edit clankie.json by hand. Full contract: docs/cli.md.
• /layout shows or hides the header banner.
• /jump <pane|agent> focuses a herdr agent (herdr agent focus), and any pane id in the transcript — w18:p1J, wherever Clankie or a tool wrote it — is clickable for the same jump. Only a refusal reaches the transcript; a working jump moves the session, which says it better. /status lists the pane ids to aim at.
• ! on empty input opens the inline shell. Ctrl+O toggles tool and bash output between preview and full; clicking a block toggles just that one. Esc interrupts an in-flight turn: the service aborts Clankie's live model turn and the run settles as cancelled in the durable log. When the run cannot be cancelled (an older service, or it already settled) — or on a second Esc — the console detaches instead and the service continues the turn.
• clankie health reports operator credential source and env/store consistency without fingerprints or secret values. Remove an active CLANKIE_OPERATOR_TOKEN override before rotating the stored credential.

Headless

Everything that is not live console chrome is also a command: clankie status, clankie doctor, clankie model set, clankie persona set, clankie pair, and the rest print one JSON document and exit 0 or 1. The full contract, with every flag and payload, is the CLI reference. Secret entry stays interactive — /auth, /discord, /connect, /voice — because tokens never become flags.