Usage & Commands

Reference for flags, slash commands, keybindings, and the approval prompt the brio CLI emits.

Command-line flags

brio [--yolo] [--continue] [-v] [--debug] [--no-upgrade-check] [--prod]
brio login [--no-browser]
brio logout

Flag	Default	Purpose
--yolo	off	Auto-approve every tool call. Bypasses both the verb gate and the directory-sandbox gate.
--continue	off	Restore the previous session transcript and reuse its session_id.
-v, --verbose	off	Also stream INFO+ logs to stderr. Per-session JSON logs are always written.
--debug	off	Stream all DEBUG+ logs to stderr; the TUI also opens a debug pane.
--no-upgrade-check	off	Skip the startup call to /v1/cli/latest-version.
--prod	off	Dev-only. Read .env.prod from cwd instead of .env.local.

Subcommands

• brio login — RFC 8628 device-authorization flow. Writes $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/brio/config.env (~/.config/brio/config.env) at mode 0600. --no-browser suppresses auto-open of the approval URL.
• brio logout — delete that config file.

Slash commands

Type a / in the input row and the spinner row above it shows matches. Tab completes the top match.

Command	Effect
/help	List commands.
/usage	Token usage since process start plus the per-user 5h rolling-window snapshot.
/clear	Drop conversation history and per-turn state. Keeps session_id and token totals.
/compact [focus]	Summarize history into one block via a Haiku-backed summarizer. Optional [focus] steers what to keep.
/reset	Wipe the cloud session and zero local usage counters. Use between unrelated tasks.
/sendlogs	Upload this session's log file to support for debugging.
/quit	Exit (same as Ctrl-D or typing exit / quit).

:::warning Copying text from the TUI

The TUI captures the mouse for scrollback, so a normal click-drag will not select text. To copy from the log buffer, hold Shift while you click-drag (or Shift + double-click for a word). Then copy with your terminal's usual shortcut (Cmd-C on macOS, Ctrl-Shift-C on most Linux terminals).

📋 Shift + drag to select. Without Shift, the mouse scrolls instead of selecting.

:::

Keybindings

Key	Action
Enter	Submit the current line. If an approval prompt is active, the line is the answer instead.
Up / Down	Walk through input history (~/.brio_history).
Tab	Complete the current slash command.
PgUp / PgDn	Scroll the log buffer 10 lines. Mouse wheel works too.
Ctrl-Home	Jump to the top of the log.
Ctrl-End	Jump back to the live tail.
Ctrl-C	If an approval prompt is open: deny it. Otherwise: exit.
Ctrl-D	Exit.

Approval prompts

Two independent gates fire before any tool runs:

1. Verb gate — per tool type. When the agent wants to run a tool, the spinner row turns into:

▸ approve bash: colcon build --packages-select my_pkg? [y]es / [n]o / [a]lways bash / [d]eny all bash / [A]ll session

Choice	Effect
y / yes	Approve this single call.
n / anything else	Deny this single call.
a	Approve this type for the rest of the session.
d	Deny this type for the rest of the session.
A (capital)	Approve all tool types for the rest of the session.
Ctrl-C	Deny without committing to a policy.

2. Directory gate — per filesystem path. When a tool touches a directory outside the CLI's startup cwd, you get:

▸ approve directory access: /opt/ros/humble — [y]es once / [n]o / [a]lways this dir

a is recursive: approving /a/b grants /a/b/** for the rest of the session. The [A]ll-session verb shortcut does not bypass this gate — only --yolo does. Directories named in your prompt are auto-approved at turn start.

All gates reset on process exit.

Tool calls the agent can request

The agent emits structured events; the CLI executes them locally. The agent never gets a shell.

ROS 2 / build — preferred, typed: ros2 (e.g. ros2 topic echo /scan), colcon (e.g. colcon build).

Filesystem: read_file, write_file, apply_patch, list_dir, which, mkdir, rm, cp, mv.

Shell escape (last resort): bash — runs bash -c <command>. 25 s default timeout, output truncated to 200 lines.

Composite: batch — one approval covers a list of sub-events that share an intent. The TUI unwraps the result so you see each sub-call's output.

Anything outside this set is rejected client-side.

Query size

The CLI rejects single prompts estimated above ~1500 tokens (~6000 characters) before sending. Trim or split.

Local files

Path	What
~/.config/brio/config.env	API key + URL. Written by brio login, mode 0600.
~/.local/share/brio/logs/{date}/{session_id}.log	Per-session JSON log (loguru).
~/.brio_history	Input history for Up/Down.
~/.brio_last_session	Transcript saved on exit; restored by --continue.
~/.brio_last_session_id	Session id reused by --continue.