CLI Reference

The bento CLI manages the daemon lifecycle and provides operational visibility.

Lifecycle

`bento daemon start`

Start the daemon. Uses the installed user service (launchd on macOS, systemd on Linux) when present; otherwise spawns a detached Bun process.

bento daemon start

`bento daemon stop`

Stop the daemon. Sends SIGTERM and waits up to 10s before escalating to SIGKILL.

bento daemon stop

`bento daemon restart`

Stop then start the daemon. On macOS with a launchd-installed service, the service is reinstalled so the plist is regenerated — launchctl kickstart alone would miss edits to env vars, working directory, or PATH.

bento daemon restart

`bento daemon install`

Install the daemon as a user service: a launchd agent on macOS, a systemd user unit (~/.config/systemd/user/bento.service) on Linux.

bento daemon install

`bento daemon uninstall`

Stop, disable, and remove the user service.

bento daemon uninstall

Observability

`bento daemon status`

Show daemon process status and probe the local and public-tunnel endpoints for reachability.

bento daemon status

daemon: pid=12345
local   : reachable (4ms) — bento uptime=3600s
tunnel  : not configured (no `tunnel:` block in bento.yaml)

When a tunnel is configured, the tunnel line reports the public URL and its latency — see Public Access.

`bento daemon logs [target]`

Show daemon logs, or logs for a specific agent.

bento daemon logs            # daemon logs
bento daemon logs reviewer   # agent-specific logs
bento daemon logs -f         # follow mode
bento daemon logs -n 100     # last 100 lines

Flag	Description
`-f`, `--follow`	Tail logs in real-time
`-n <lines>`	Number of lines to show (default: 50)
`--agent`	Tail the most recent agent run's stdout; pass a run ID as the positional `target` to select a specific run
`--render flat`	Collapse stream-json events to readable per-turn text
`--render raw`	Raw NDJSON (default)

`bento trace <trigger-id>`

Print a full lifecycle trace for a trigger — trigger → workload → invocations → agents.

bento trace <trigger-id>

Flag	Description
`--json`	Output as JSON (for programmatic consumption)
`--no-messages`	Skip extracting agent messages from stdout logs

`bento queue status`

Show the Graphile Worker queue state and job counts.

bento queue status

state:     active
waiting:   2
active:    1
failed:    0
completed: 47
delayed:   0

`bento queue resume`

Resume processing after a circuit breaker trip.

bento queue resume
bento queue resume --token <token>

Diagnostics

`bento doctor`

Validate infrastructure: config, database, runtimes, sandbox, tunnel, daytona, auth, repos, orchestrator, worktrees, workloads, and queue. Checks are defined in bento.doctor.yaml.

bento doctor

Flag	Description
`--fix`	Auto-remediate issues (requires per-check opt-in in `bento.doctor.yaml`)
`--json`	Output as JSON

`bento probe <scope> [target]`

Run a single sandbox probe through the daemon.

bento probe runtime claude
bento probe env ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
bento probe gh-auth
bento probe ping claude/claude-sonnet-4-6

Scope	Target	Description
`runtime`	`<name>`	Check a runtime is installed and callable
`env`	`<KEY>`	Check an environment variable is visible in the sandbox
`gh-auth`	—	Check GitHub authentication
`ping`	`<runtime>/<model>`	Round-trip a minimal request to a model

`bento runtimes`

Ping each unique (runtime, model) combination referenced by agents/*/SOUL.md and skills/*/SOUL.md.

bento runtimes

Flag	Description
`--timeout <ms>`	Per-combo timeout (default: 60000)

Triggers & auth

`bento trigger inspect <id>`

Show what the runtime would receive for a stored trigger.

bento trigger inspect <id>

Flag	Description
`--event`	Print the original webhook payload (JSON)
`--prompt`	Print the rendered user prompt
`--system-prompt`	Print the assembled system prompt (SOUL.md + skill body + augment)
`--args`	Print the full argv as JSON
`--size`	Print prompt + argv size breakdown with token estimates
`--json`	Print the full inspection result as JSON
`--pipeline <n>`	Pick a single pipeline when multiple match

`bento replay <trigger-id>`

Re-dispatch a stored trigger through the daemon.

bento replay <trigger-id>
bento replay <trigger-id> --payload '{"key":"value"}'

Flag	Description
`--payload <json>`	Override the trigger payload
`--token <token>`	Management token (or set `BENTO_MANAGEMENT_TOKEN`)

`bento trigger schedule <name>`

Fire a scheduled pipeline now, bypassing its cron — the manual equivalent of a cron tick.

bento trigger schedule triage-sweep

Flag	Description
`--token <token>`	Management token (or set `BENTO_MANAGEMENT_TOKEN`)

`bento token`

Manage bearer tokens for authenticated daemon access.

bento token issue --email you@example.com
bento token list
bento token revoke <id>

Subcommand	Flags	Description
`issue`	`--email <addr>` (required), `--name <label>`, `--force`	Mint a bearer token; `--force` rotates an existing token for the email
`list`	—	List issued tokens
`revoke <id>`	—	Revoke a token by id

`bento ask <query>`

Search the wiki, blueprints, and recipes, then answer with Claude.

bento ask "how do I configure a tunnel?"

Flag	Description
`--fast`	BM25 only — no LLM reranking, instant
`--runtime <r>`	Runtime to use (default: claude)
`--model <m>`	Model to use (default: claude-sonnet-4-6)

Global Options

Option	Description
`--port <port>`	Daemon port for status/probe/queue commands (default: 7890)
`--token <token>`	Management token for state-changing commands (or set `BENTO_MANAGEMENT_TOKEN`)

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
`BENTO_DAEMON_ENTRY`	Override path to the daemon entrypoint
`BENTO_MANAGEMENT_TOKEN`	Auth token for management endpoints