CLI

The Airweave CLI lets you interact with your collections from the command line. It’s designed for both developers and AI agents: interactive mode gives you rich output with spinners and prompts, while piped or non-TTY mode outputs clean JSON for scripting.

Installation

$
pip install airweave-cli

Verify the installation:

$
airweave --version

Authentication

Before using the CLI, authenticate with your Airweave account. There are two methods: browser-based login (OAuth) and API key.

Browser login

$
airweave auth login

This opens a browser window where you sign in via Auth0. The CLI stores the access token and organization ID in ~/.airweave/config.json.

API key login

$
airweave auth login --api-key

You’ll be prompted for your API key, base URL, and an optional default collection. The key is validated before being saved.

Check auth status

$
airweave auth status

Log out

$
airweave auth logout

Searching

The primary use case — search any collection from your terminal:

$
airweave search "quarterly revenue figures" --collection finance-data

If you’ve set a default collection (via login or environment variable), you can omit --collection:

$
airweave search "how does authentication work?"

Piping results

When stdout is not a TTY (e.g. piped to another command), the CLI automatically outputs JSON:

$
airweave search "refund policy" | jq -r '.results[0].md_content'

You can also force JSON output in interactive mode:

$
airweave search "deploy steps" --json | jq '.results[0]'

Collections

List collections

$
airweave collections list

Create a collection

$
airweave collections create --name "My Data" --readable-id my-data

Get collection details

$
airweave collections get my-data-x7k9m

Sources

List source connections

$
airweave sources list --collection my-data

Add a source connection

$
airweave sources add slack --collection my-data --name "Team Slack"

Trigger a sync

$
airweave sources sync <source-connection-id>

Use --force for a full re-sync instead of incremental:

$
airweave sources sync <source-connection-id> --force

Global flags

These flags work with any command:

Configuration

The CLI resolves configuration in this order: CLI flags → environment variables → config file → defaults.

Environment variables

Config file

Stored at ~/.airweave/config.json:

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{
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  "api_key": "sk-...",
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  "base_url": "https://api.airweave.ai",
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  "collection": "my-default-collection"
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}

Self-hosted instances

Point the CLI at your own Airweave deployment:

$
airweave auth login --api-key --base-url https://your-airweave-instance.com

Or set the environment variable:

$
export AIRWEAVE_BASE_URL="https://your-airweave-instance.com"

For custom Auth0 configurations, set these additional variables:

Output behavior

The CLI adapts its output based on context:

Errors always go to stderr. In JSON mode, errors are formatted as:

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{
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  "error": {
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    "message": "Collection not found",
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    "code": "not_found"
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  }
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}

Exit codes: 0 for success, 1 for failure.

Command reference

airweave [--version] [--json] [--quiet] <command>
Commands:
  search          Search a collection
  auth            Authentication management
    login         Authenticate (browser or API key)
    status        Print current auth state
    logout        Clear stored credentials
  collections     Collection management
    list          List all collections
    create        Create a new collection
    get           Get collection details
  sources         Source connection management
    list          List source connections
    add           Add a new source connection
    sync          Trigger a sync