CLI Guide
This guide helps you get started with the Dexto CLI and includes a comprehensive list of commands you can run with Dexto CLI.
Dexto CLI is the easiest way to get started with AI agents.
Some of the cool things you can do with Dexto CLI:
- Talk to any LLM in your terminal
- Create long-lived AI agents with tools, knowledge and memories. Example: a productivity agent that integrates with your linear and github.
- Deploy these agents either locally or on the cloud
- Talk to these agents on any application - discord, telegram, slack, cursor, claude desktop, etc.
- Start building your own AI applications - get started with building your own Cursor!
dexto create-app
More CLI commands coming soon!
Request a CLI command by creating an issue here.
See all available options and flags:
dexto -h
Launch the interactive CLI:
dexto
Start dexto CLI with a different LLM
# openai
dexto -m gpt-4o
# anthropic
dexto -m claude-4-sonnet-20250514
# google
dexto -m gemini-2.0-flash
Start dexto with a different config file
This allows you to configure dexto CLI to use a different AI agent
dexto --agent <path_to_agent_config_file>
Check Configuration Guide to understand more about dexto config files
Require all MCP servers to connect successfully
By default, Dexto uses "lenient" mode where individual servers can fail to connect without preventing startup. Use the --strict flag to require all servers to connect successfully:
dexto --strict
This overrides any individual connectionMode settings in your MCP server configurations. See MCP Configuration for more details on connection modes.
Run a specific command with Dexto CLI:
dexto "find all .sh files in this directory"
# or use explicit -p flag
dexto -p "find all .sh files in this directory"
or do the same with gemini:
dexto -m gemini-2.0-flash "find all files in this directory"
# or with explicit -p flag
dexto -m gemini-2.0-flash -p "find all files in this directory"
Dexto CLI can accept any command - if it doesn't see it as an in-built command, it will fire a single run CLI with that request
For instance, in the above command, the query "find all .sh files in this directory" will start Dexto Agent, send it this query, process the response, and then exit.
Start a telegram bot
dexto --mode telegram
To use a specific agent config file for the telegram bot:
dexto --mode telegram --agent ./telegram-agent-config.yml
Start a discord bot
dexto --mode discord
To use a specific agent config file for the discord bot:
dexto --mode discord --agent ./discord-agent-config.yml
Start dexto as an MCP server
dexto --mode mcp
With this, you can now connect this agent to Cursor, claude desktop, or even other Dexto agents!
Check Using dexto as an MCP Server to understand more about MCP servers.
Group MCP servers with dexto
dexto mcp --group-servers
This starts Dexto as an MCP server that aggregates and re-exposes tools from multiple configured MCP servers. This is useful when you want to access tools from multiple MCP servers through a single connection.
To use a specific config file:
dexto mcp --group-servers -a ./dexto-tools.yml
Check Using Dexto to group MCP servers to understand more about MCP server aggregation.
Change log level for dexto CLI
To change the logging level, set environment variable DEXTO_LOG_LEVEL to 'info', 'debug', or 'silly'. Default is 'info'.
ex: for debug logs:
DEXTO_LOG_LEVEL=debug
dexto what is the time
Project setup commands
These commands will help you get started creating your own AI application using Dexto
Setup a fresh typescript project using dexto-core
dexto create-app
Add dexto into an existing typescript project
dexto init-app
Check Building with Dexto Guide for more information!
Coming soon!
Some of the CLI commands we're working on!