AO CLI Reference

Name: AO CLI Reference
Author: Untrivial-ai

By Untrivial-ai· Untrivial-ai/agent-orchestrator· 0

Reference for the AO CLI commands to spawn workers, manage sessions, and control agents.

Installation

1
Make sure Claude is on your device and in your terminal.
Skills load from ~/.claude/skills/ when Claude Code starts up — so you need it on your machine first. If you don't have it yet, install it once with the command below, then run claude in any terminal to verify.
One-time setup
```
npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
```
Already have it? Skip ahead.

Paste into Claude Code or into your terminal.

Install

git clone ht•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •• ••••• •• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •• •• •• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

This copies the whole skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/using-ao-untrivial-ai/ — the SKILL.md plus any scripts, reference docs, or templates the skill ships with. Safe default: works for every skill.

Faster alternative (instruction-only skills)

Skips the clone and grabs only the SKILL.md file. Don't use this if the skill ships Python scripts, reference markdowns, or asset templates — they won't be downloaded and the skill will fail when it tries to load them.

Quick install (SKILL.md only)

mkdir -p ~/.••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •• •••• ••••• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Restart Claude Code.
Quit and reopen Claude Code (or any other agent that loads from ~/.claude/skills/). New skills are picked up on startup.
Just ask Claude.
Skills auto-activate when your request matches the skill's description — no slash command needed. Trigger phrases live in the skill's own frontmatter; you can read them in the “What this skill does” section above.

Prefer to read the source first? Open on GitHub.

When Claude uses it

Catalog of the AO (Agent Orchestrator) `ao` CLI: spawning workers, managing sessions and projects, sending messages, controlling the shared browser, previewing pages, and daemon control. Use when using the ao CLI, spawning workers, or managing AO sessions in an AO workspace.

What this skill does

AO CLI Catalog

ao is a thin CLI over the local AO daemon. Every command is ao <command> --help for the authoritative flag list.

Command	What it does	When to use	Details
`spawn`	Spawn a worker agent in a fresh git worktree	Starting a new task or issue	commands/spawn.md
`session`	Manage agent sessions (list, kill, rename, restore, etc.)	Inspecting or controlling running/terminated sessions	commands/session.md
`project`	Register, inspect, configure, or remove projects	Setting up or managing repos AO knows about	commands/project.md
`orchestrator`	List orchestrator sessions	Viewing which sessions are orchestrators	commands/orchestrator.md
`review`	Submit a reviewer result for a worker's PR	Completing a code review loop	commands/review.md
`send`	Send a message to a running agent session	Correcting or directing a live agent	commands/send.md
`preview`	Start a session-owned app or open an exact URL/file	Running and showing the worker's relevant app, Markdown, HTML, PDF, or image	commands/preview.md
`browser`	Inspect and control the session's shared live browser	Verifying a web app through snapshots, interactions, waits, screenshots, console, and errors	commands/browser.md
`start`	Fetch (if needed) and open the AO desktop app	Launching the app	commands/start.md
`stop`	Stop the AO daemon	Shutting down AO	commands/stop.md
`status`	Show daemon status	Verifying the daemon is up and healthy	commands/status.md
`doctor`	Run local health checks	Diagnosing AO setup problems	commands/doctor.md
`import`	Import projects from a legacy AO install	Migrating from the old flat-file store	commands/import.md
`version`	Print version information	Checking installed version	-
`completion`	Generate shell completion scripts	Setting up tab completion	-

Conventions

Most read commands accept --json for machine-readable output.
-p / --project scopes session subcommand lookups to one project.
Session and project ids are shown by ao session ls and ao project ls.
--agent is an alias for --harness on ao spawn.
Every command accepts -h / --help for the full flag list.
For frontend launch, preview selection, or artifact handoff, read commands/preview.md before acting. Its static-file, project-runtime, and automatic-handoff rules are load-bearing.
For page inspection, interaction, or request diagnosis, read commands/browser.md. It defines shared-tab behavior and the opt-in network policy.

Use references.md only when a natural-language request does not map clearly to a command above.

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