@the-librarian/cli — the librarian installer

A small CLI that does two jobs for The Librarian: it wires it into your AI agents (installs/updates the integration for each harness, across all your machines) and self-hosts the server they talk to (server up / update). Think of it as the package manager for your Librarian setup: one tool you keep, driving each harness's native install path rather than hand-editing five config formats.

Harnesses it manages: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Hermes, Pi. For the server side, see Self-host the server.

Install

Run it straight from npm with npx — no global install needed:

npx @the-librarian/cli install

Prefer a persistent command? Install it globally once and call librarian directly:

npm i -g @the-librarian/cli
librarian install

That's it — any harness you'd install into already has Node, so there's no bootstrap script. librarian install with no args opens the interactive multi-select and prompts once for your MCP URL + token; pass harness ids to target specific ones. Re-run it any time to add a harness.

Commands

librarian install   [harness…]   Install into one or more harnesses
                                  (no args → interactive multi-select; prompts
                                  for MCP URL + token once)
librarian uninstall [harness…]   Remove The Librarian from each harness
librarian update    [harness…]   Update the integration to the current version
librarian status                 Live table: harness · installed · version
librarian doctor                 Token set? server reachable? which harness CLIs?
librarian config                 Show or set MCP URL, token, server URL
librarian self-update            Update the CLI itself (coming in a later release)
librarian report                 Push this machine's state to the server
                                  (coming in a later release)

librarian server up              Self-host the server with Docker; prints the
                                  MCP URL + agent token to paste into `install`
librarian server update          Upgrade the server to the latest release
                                  (pulls before stop; data/config are preserved)
librarian server down|status|logs  Stop / inspect / tail the running server

Useful flags: --mcp-url <url>, --token <token> (never printed), --shell <bash|zsh|fish> to override shell detection, -h/--help, -v/--version. Harness ids: claude, codex, opencode, hermes, pi. A harness whose CLI isn't installed is reported not-detected and skipped — not an error.

Self-host the server

The Librarian needs a server to talk to. server up stands one up with Docker — it resolves the latest stable release, pulls and verifies the exact published image, runs its immutable digest, mints your secrets, waits for health, and prints the MCP URL + agent token to paste into librarian install. Stable installs need Docker but not Git; pass --ref main (or another development ref) to use the Git-backed source checkout and local build path:

npx @the-librarian/cli server up

To close the first-owner setup window on an automated fresh install, arm a one-shot owner claim at creation time:

LIBRARIAN_BOOTSTRAP_CLAIM_SECRET="$(openssl rand -base64 48)" \
  npx @the-librarian/cli server up
librarian server admin auth mint-claim --email [email protected]

The secret is validated and stored only in the managed 0600 deploy env-file; server update preserves it. See the self-host guide for the full claim and recovery ceremonies.

By default the vault lives in a Docker-managed named volume (librarian_data). To keep your data at a path you choose — so you can back it up, put it on a specific disk, or move it between hosts — pass --data-dir:

npx @the-librarian/cli server up --data-dir /srv/librarian

With --data-dir, the server bind-mounts that directory at /data and runs the container as the directory's owner, so the vault stays owned by — and writable by — you, not a container user. The directory is created if it doesn't exist, and server update reuses it automatically. (--data-dir and --data-volume are mutually exclusive.)

If the curator's LLM is only reachable on a tailnet, pass --dns 100.100.100.100 on server up or server update (the latter works even when the image is already current). The nameserver is recorded in deploy-state so later updates keep it. Compose stacks use LIBRARIAN_DNS instead.

Other server commands: server update pulls and verifies before stopping the old container, preserving storage, ports, credentials, restart policy, operator DNS (--dns), and deploy state. A failed replacement restores and health-checks the previous executable; if migration began, persistent data changes are explicitly not claimed as rolled back. server status labels deployments as published (with a short digest), source, or legacy. server down / logs and server enable-boot (Linux systemd) complete the lifecycle. Run it on a private network / behind a VPN, or expose it with auth — see the deployment guide.

The managed server files live in ~/.librarian/server by default: deploy.env is protected mode 0600, while deploy-state.json contains only non-secret configuration and image provenance. Stable registry/network/auth/ architecture failures are teaching errors and never trigger a source-build fallback. Existing source checkouts are preserved when a deployment adopts a published image.

What it writes to your environment

The CLI keeps everything under ~/.librarian/:

• ~/.librarian/env — a POSIX env file (chmod 600, owner-only) holding your two secrets:

  export LIBRARIAN_MCP_URL="…"
  export LIBRARIAN_AGENT_TOKEN="…"
  

• ~/.librarian/machine-id — a UUID generated on first run, so the same setup on different machines stays distinct in the dashboard.

It adds one idempotent managed block to your shell rc (~/.bashrc / ~/.zshrc) that sources the env file:

# >>> librarian >>>
[ -f "$HOME/.librarian/env" ] && . "$HOME/.librarian/env"
# <<< librarian <<<

Fish can't source a POSIX file, so it instead gets a native ~/.config/fish/conf.d/librarian.fish with set -gx. Re-running any command replaces the block — it never duplicates. librarian config rewrites ~/.librarian/env.

Security

Your agent token is a credential. The CLI treats it like one:

• It's written only to ~/.librarian/env, which is chmod 600 (owner read/write only) — never to a committed or world-readable file.
• It is never printed (not in status, doctor, config, or logs) and never put in a URL — bearer tokens travel in headers, to the configured server, over the configured URL, and nowhere else.

If you ever need to rotate it, re-run librarian config --token <new> (or edit ~/.librarian/env directly).

Avoid --token <value> on a shared or audited machine. A value passed on the command line is visible to anyone who can run ps while the command runs, and it lands in your shell history. Prefer entering the token at the interactive prompt — librarian install reads it with the echo muted, so it never appears on screen, in ps, or in history — or edit the chmod 600 ~/.librarian/env file directly.