Kode CLI Reference — Commands, Flags, and Concepts

Complete reference for all Kode CLI commands. Kode uses a hybrid Go+TypeScript architecture — all commands are accessible from the kode binary.

Kode ships a single kode binary that gives you access to every feature of the platform. The binary is written in Go and acts as the primary entry point for the verification engine, code generation, and context planning commands. For everything else — providers, models, sessions, agents, the TUI, and more — the binary automatically proxies the call to the TypeScript CLI bundled alongside it. You never need to invoke two separate tools; kode <anything> just works.

How the CLI works

When you run kode <command>, the Go binary first checks whether the command is one it owns natively (such as init, generate, verify, loop, plan, or stats). If the command is not recognized by the Go layer, the binary transparently forwards the full argument list to the TypeScript CLI. This means every command in both layers appears under the single kode namespace.

# Handled by the Go binary
kode init
kode generate "add pagination"
kode verify --input patches.json

# Automatically proxied to the TypeScript CLI
kode providers
kode models
kode session list

Global flags

version · subcommand

Print the current version, git commit hash, and build date.

kode version
# kode 1.2.3 (commit: abc1234, date: 2025-01-15)

Command index

Command	Description
kode init	Scaffold .kode/kode.json config in your project
kode run	Generate, verify, and apply code in one step
kode generate	Generate code patches as JSON output
kode loop	Full pipeline: generate → verify → apply → test with rollback
kode verify	Run 6-gate verification on a JSON input file
kode plan	Build a context graph from your codebase
kode golf	Competitive optimization across parallel worktrees
kode daemon	Background tech debt watcher
kode stats	View verification statistics from the audit log
kode explain	Get details on a gate failure
kode mcp	Start the Kode MCP stdio server
kode tui	Launch the terminal UI
kode providers	Manage AI provider credentials
kode models	List available AI models
kode session	List and manage sessions
kode agent	Manage agents
kode install	Install security tools (sicario)
kode upgrade	Upgrade Kode to the latest version

Key command pages

kode init

Scaffold your project configuration with TDD mode, blast radius limits, and auto-detected test commands.

kode run

Generate and apply verified code patches from a plain-English prompt in one command.

kode loop

Run the full generate → verify → apply → test pipeline with automatic rollback on failure.

kode plan

Build a surgical, token-capped context graph using Tree-sitter AST analysis before generating.

kode generate

Generate structured JSON hunks from a prompt, with optional inline verification and apply.

kode verify

Run the 6-gate verification pipeline against a JSON file of hunks or proposed file contents.