Commands

Every verb below is one annotated Rust function, and each is reachable from the CLI, from HTTP at POST /ops/<name>, and from MCP — except where reach forbids it. See Ops.

centinel --help builds this list by iterating the registry, so it is never out of date.

Pipeline

Command	What it does
`run`	Collect everything new for every configured source, then index and embed it.
`source`	Add, list and remove the sources `centinel run` walks.
`schedule`	Write and remove the cadences `centinel serve` fires runs on.

Stages

Each is what run does for you, available on its own.

Command	What it does
`discover`	Enumerate every address a source declares.
`collect`	Acquire every address the latest discovery run found, skipping what is already stored.
`extract`	Derive searchable text from collected documents.
`transcribe`	Transcribe collected audio with a local Whisper model.
`index`	Chunk extracted text into the search index.
`embed`	Embed indexed chunks into the vector table.
`ingest`	Fetch one or more URLs into the content-addressed store.

Corpus

Command	What it does
`search`	Search the corpus for a passage.
`read`	Read the extracted text of a collected document.
`open`	Open a collected document in an application. (host)
`list`	List sources in the store with resource counts and liveness.
`check`	See what extraction makes of one link or file. Nothing is stored.
`investigate`	Ask the registry what it makes of an address. Nothing is stored.
`schedules`	Show configured schedules, when each next fires, and how the last one went.
`history`	Show what scheduled and manual runs did, newest first.

Host

Command	What it does
`doctor`	Report host readiness: required binaries, store location, corpus size.
`models`	Inspect, fetch, verify and remove model weights.

Servers

Command	What it does
`serve`	Run the HTTP server (ops as routes, plus MCP over HTTP). Default bind `127.0.0.1:8787`.
`mcp`	Run an MCP server over stdio.

serve --no-schedule serves the read API without firing any [[schedule]].

Global flags

Flag	Effect
`--root DIR`	store root. Also `$CENTINEL_ROOT`.
`--config FILE`	config file. Also `$CENTINEL_CONFIG`.
`--json`	force JSON output on a terminal
`--pretty`	force rendered prose into a pipe
`--color auto\|always\|never`	override colour. `NO_COLOR` is honoured.

Output format defaults to the destination: prose to a terminal, JSON to a pipe.

Flags worth knowing

centinel run --source tampa --limit 50 --skip embed
centinel collect --source tampa --match /assets/ --rps 5
centinel embed --dry-run
centinel embed --limit 100
centinel search "budget" --source tampa -n 20 --snippet-chars 0
centinel schedules --check
centinel history --failed --since 2026-08-01T00:00:00Z
centinel history --run 8f3c

--limit on run and collect bounds collection, never discovery — a truncated snapshot of a source’s address set would look exactly like a source that shrank.

--user-agent and --timeout-secs are available on the ops that fetch on your behalf (check, investigate). A descriptive User-Agent measurably reduces WAF 403s.

Handles

search, read and open all print a short blob hash, and all three accept one back by prefix, git-style.

centinel read 3f9a2c1
centinel open 3f9a2c1

Both the original blob_sha and the derived_sha are valid targets.

Keyboard shortcuts

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