← Back to blog

The terminal isn't a demo

0xcircuitbreaker··6 min read

The terminal is where many agent runs begin: beside the repository, environment, and tools that produced them. A local CLI keeps inspection in that context.

Editor's note - August 17, 2026: This essay describes the original portable-artifact CLI. Version 0.7 keeps that surface and adds v3 repository operations, deterministic replay verification, cross-run statistics, supported trace import, OTLP export/push, no-code model capture, and a broader stable JSON contract.

The original public beta treated that interface as the working product surface, not a decorative preview of a future dashboard.

One artifact, small commands

tine ls
tine show result.tine
tine verify result.tine
tine cost result.tine

Version 0.2 adds local organization without requiring a service:

tine tag result.tine --add regression
tine search "tag:regression status:failed"
tine reindex

The index is rebuildable. The .tine files remain the source of truth.

The terminal makes modes explicit

tine replay result.tine --mode cache
tine replay result.tine --mode rerun --harness codex

Cache replay and live rerun have different cost, risk, and reproducibility properties. A command makes the selected mode visible in shell history and automation.

It composes

CLI output can be reviewed by a person, captured by CI, or wrapped in a project script. Keys can arrive through an environment variable or key file. Artifacts can be produced by native Python agents, Codex CLI, Kimi Code CLI, or an explicit generic harness.

For automation, v0.7 extends the contract:

tine verify result.tine --json
tine search "tag:regression" --json
tine replay result.tine --verify --json
tine diff result.tine candidate.tine --json --exit-code
tine stats --group-by model --json

Those commands emit one documented JSON object while the original rich rendering remains the default.

That composability is why the terminal matters. It keeps the run next to the project and turns the provenance workflow into commands that can be inspected, repeated, and versioned with the rest of the system.