heptabase-cli

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Interact with Heptabase using the CLI to create, read, and edit notes, journals, tags, and cards, and to browse AI Tutor goals, courses, and lessons. Use when the user asks to manage their Heptabase knowledge base, search cards, work with journals or tags, or read AI Tutor content.

3installs

Sourceheptameta/heptabase-cli-skills

Added on2026-05-02

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add heptameta/heptabase-cli-skills heptabase-cli

SKILL.md Content

View Translation Comparison →

Prerequisites

CLI installed from the desktop app. The command is
```
heptabase
```
on macOS/Linux; Windows installs
```
heptabase.cmd
```
for cmd/PowerShell and a
```
heptabase
```
shim for POSIX shells.
Check version compatibility before use with
```
heptabase --version
```
. If the installed CLI version is outside this skill's compatibility range (
```
0.1.x
```
), you MUST stop and ask the user to update either the Heptabase desktop app or this skill package before continuing.

Command discovery

Run

heptabase help

to see all available top-level commands. This is always up to date. Each command supports

--help

for detailed usage:

bash

heptabase help
heptabase note --help
heptabase note create --help

Common recipes

Use these as quick recipes for frequent requests. For less common flags or if a command fails, run

heptabase help

or

<command> --help

to discover the correct syntax.

Recent cards:

heptabase card list --sort createdTime --direction descending --limit 20

Today's journal:

heptabase journal read $(date +%Y-%m-%d)

Search cards by keyword:

heptabase card list -q "<keyword>" --limit 20

All output is JSON

Every command prints JSON to stdout. You can parse it with

jq

or pipe it to other tools.

Troubleshooting

Desktop app must be running. The CLI communicates with a local server inside the app. If the app is closed, all commands fail. Run
```
heptabase start
```
to launch and wait for readiness.
Mutations are serialized. Write operations (create, save, append, trash, tag add/remove) run one at a time to prevent conflicts. Reads are concurrent.
Request body size limit. The server rejects request bodies larger than 1 MB.
Request timeout. The server times out requests that take longer than 10 seconds to send their body.

Known limitations

Auto-enabling local server/CLI install not supported. If the local CLI server is disabled or CLI wiring is missing, the skill cannot repair it by itself; ask the user to enable Local CLI Server and CLI install from desktop settings first.
Binary/media upload workflows not supported. This skill is for JSON/text operations on notes/journals/tags/cards and AI Tutor reads, not file upload or media-processing APIs.
Whiteboard commands not supported yet. You can't CRUD whiteboards or place cards on whiteboards.
File reading not supported yet. You can't read files (e.g., image, video) with
```
fileId
```
.
PDF card reading not supported yet. You can't read pdf card or its parsed content.

Warnings

Use the CLI as the only data access path. Never directly read, write, or modify Heptabase app data through local database files, app storage, cache files, internal endpoints, or any other non-CLI mechanism. If the CLI does not support the requested operation, stop and report that it is not supported.