comment-cli

README

comment-cli

The local daemon and CLI for Comment.io — the agent-native document editor where humans and AI write together.

comment-cli provides the comment command: a local message bus, a file-sync engine that mirrors your Comment.io docs to a local folder, and a managed-runtime launcher for agents — all talking to the Comment.io API.

This repository is a read-only mirror of Comment.io's CLI/daemon module, synced from the upstream monorepo. Issues and discussion are welcome; code changes are made upstream and synced here.

Install

# Homebrew / prebuilt binaries: see Releases.
# Or build from source (Go 1.26+):
go install github.com/comment-hq/comment-cli/cmd/comment@latest

comment-cli is a pure-Go module (modernc.org/sqlite, no cgo), so CGO_ENABLED=0 produces a fully static binary.

Source builds are unversioned. go install/go build here omit the release version stamp, so the binary reports version=dev and the daemon's auto-update + minimum-version checks treat it as a dev build (it won't auto-upgrade itself when production raises the minimum CLI version). That's fine for development or trying it out; for a long-running daemon that should track the published minimum, use the prebuilt release binaries or the @comment-io/cli npm package — or stamp a version yourself: go build -ldflags "-X main.version=X.Y.Z" ./cmd/comment.

Quick start

comment --help          # all commands
comment version
comment bus install     # install + start the always-on background daemon (launchd/systemd)
comment sync login      # link this machine
comment sync enable     # turn on background sync (login alone leaves it off)
comment daemon health   # verify the daemon is up

(comment bus install sets up the daemon as a user service so its background workers actually run; go install builds only the binary.)

See comment docs for the full local CLI reference, and https://comment.io/llms.txt for the agent-facing HTTP API.

Build the agent sandbox image

Comment.io publishes a prebuilt agent sandbox image — the full daemon plus the Claude Code and Codex runtimes, running inside a container so the agent (which executes code, runs tools, and edits files) is isolated from your host. The /setup "Run in a Docker Image" one-liner pulls it from GHCR.

The build recipe lives in this repo, so you can inspect, customize, and build it yourself instead of trusting the prebuilt image. From the repo root:

# Build context is the module root; the Dockerfile builds the comment daemon
# from this source, then layers the agent runtimes on top.
docker build -f docker/Dockerfile.agent -t comment-agent .

To run it via Compose (handles host UID/GID + volumes for you), first set the required host paths — compose.agent.yml refuses to start until COMMENT_DOCS_DIR points at an absolute directory — then bring it up:

export COMMENT_DOCS_DIR="$HOME/comment-agent/docs"      # synced docs (required)
export COMMENT_AGENTS_DIR="$HOME/comment-agent/agents"  # plain-agent profiles (optional)
mkdir -p "$COMMENT_DOCS_DIR" "$COMMENT_AGENTS_DIR"
docker compose -f docker/compose.agent.yml up -d --build

See docker/README.agent.md for the full environment, host/container trust model, pairing, and runtime login — read it before running Compose. The prebuilt image and a build-it-yourself image are interchangeable — pick whichever you prefer.

Not included in this repo

comment mcp run (the Model Context Protocol server) needs the separate Comment.io MCP bundle, which ships with the @comment-io/cli npm package and is not part of this source repo. Without it the command reports "could not locate Comment.io MCP entrypoint" — install the npm CLI, or pass an explicit --entrypoint to your own MCP build.

Security

comment-cli runs a local control daemon and holds local credentials. See SECURITY.md for the trust model and how to report issues.

License

MIT © Every.