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Command-line guide

The distribution installs the project-qualified tesserix-adk command. It provides local, self-contained project operations; it does not start an application server or take over an application's process. python -m tesserix_adk.cli ... is equivalent.

tesserix-adk --help

The root help command exits successfully. The current subcommand parsers treat tesserix-adk <command> --help as command-line misuse and return exit code 2; use the command syntax below when invoking an individual command.

Installed commands

Command Purpose
config Show resolved configuration provenance or validate every typed value.
doctor Run startup checks against resolved configuration and the local environment.
eval Discover and execute a versioned evaluation suite, offline by default.
evals Compare, bootstrap, or promote already measured evaluation baselines.
inspect Inspect, diff, replay, or export a committed local run artifact.
new Generate a typed agent or tool plus an offline contract test.
run Run one application-supplied local agent with a redacted streamed trace.
trace Render a recorded trace as a tree or JSON.

The dispatcher returns non-zero when input is invalid, a gate refuses, or a command cannot produce trustworthy evidence. Scripts should check the exit status rather than parsing a success-looking line.

Configure and diagnose

Validate configuration before starting a live provider:

tesserix-adk config validate
tesserix-adk config show
tesserix-adk doctor

config show reports the winning source for each value and redacts secret material. doctor first requires a valid configuration, then runs the registered environment checks; it does not guess a missing provider endpoint or credential.

Scaffold typed files

List the built-in templates or generate one agent inside an existing Python project:

tesserix-adk new --list
tesserix-adk new agent support-agent --template tool-using
tesserix-adk new tool lookup-ticket

Generation validates every target before writing. Existing paths stop the whole operation unless --force is explicit, and a failed replacement restores the prior bytes. See Getting started for the template matrix and verification commands.

Run and record a local agent

run resolves an application-owned module:attribute; the application still constructs the agent, provider, tools, and policies:

tesserix-adk run support_agent:target \
  --input "Summarise ticket SUP-1042" \
  --tenant acme \
  --user ada \
  --record runs/sup-1042.jsonl

Interactive approval is available only when the target wires it. Use --no-interactive in automation so an approval-required call fails closed instead of waiting for a terminal. Use --json for newline-delimited machine-readable progress.

Inspect and render evidence

Inspect the committed artifact produced by run:

tesserix-adk inspect runs/sup-1042.jsonl --errors-only
tesserix-adk inspect runs/sup-1042.jsonl --export-eval-case

inspect --replay uses the artifact's embedded cassette and remains offline. --diff compares two artifacts, while --step, --tool, and --since narrow the view.

The separate trace command renders the redacted trace format described in Local trace view:

tesserix-adk trace trace.json --depth 3
tesserix-adk trace trace.json --json

Run evaluations

eval executes one versioned EvalSuite JSONL file. Deterministic mode is the default and must not open a network connection:

tesserix-adk eval evals/support.jsonl \
  --target support_eval:target \
  --report junit \
  --report-path reports/support.xml \
  --output artifacts/support

Live execution requires --live, an explicit per-invocation --live-ceiling, and confirmation with --yes. The command refuses before provider work when the estimate is over the ceiling.

evals operates on baseline artifacts measured by a consumer's harness:

tesserix-adk evals compare \
  --baseline evals/baseline.json \
  --candidate artifacts/candidate.json \
  --policy evals/policy.json

Use evals bootstrap to record the first baseline and evals promote after a reviewed candidate is accepted. See Evaluation datasets, evaluation baselines, and the prompt gate.

Application-wired command helpers

The package also exports callable helpers for deployment-owned stores and registries, such as approvals, checkpoint resume, dead letters, prompt aliases, Agent Cards, and MCP surface inspection. They are Python embedding surfaces, not additional installed commands, because the kit cannot discover an application's database, authorization policy, or agent builder. Their feature pages show how an application can expose them through its own operator CLI.