MCP-native command line interface for Z.AI capabilities: vision analysis, web search, web reader, and GitHub repo exploration.
- Vision - Analyze images, screenshots, diagrams, charts, videos using GLM-4.6V
- Search - Real-time web search with domain and recency filtering
- Reader - Fetch and parse web pages to markdown
- Repo - Search and read GitHub repository code via ZRead
- OCR - Extract text, tables, formulas from images and PDFs
- Text - LLM chat completions with streaming
- Image - AI image generation
- Tokenize - Token counting
- Tools - MCP tool discovery, schemas, and raw calls
- Code Mode - TypeScript tool chaining for agent automation
- Skills - Browse and run bundled skill definitions and multi-step pipelines
export Z_AI_API_KEY="your-api-key"
npx zai-tools --help
npx zai-tools vision analyze ./screenshot.png "What errors do you see?"
npx zai-tools search "React 19 new features" --count 5Get your API key at: https://z.ai/manage-apikey/apikey-list
OpenSkills (universal - works with any AI coding agent):
npx openskills install ameno-/zai-cliClaude Code (native skill marketplace):
claude skill install ameno-/zai-tools --skill zai-clinpm i -g zai-tools
zai-tools --helpOr use directly with npx:
npx zai-tools --helpThe CLI is self-documenting. Use --help at any level:
zai-tools --help # All commands
zai-tools vision --help # Vision commands
zai-tools search --help # Search options
zai-tools repo --help # GitHub repo commands# Vision - analyze images
zai-tools vision analyze ./image.png "Describe this"
zai-tools vision ui-to-code ./design.png --output code
zai-tools vision extract-text ./screenshot.png --language python
zai-tools vision diagnose-error ./error.png
# Search - web search
zai-tools search "TypeScript best practices" --count 10
zai-tools search "security news" --recency oneDay
# Reader - fetch web content
zai-tools read https://docs.example.com/api
zai-tools read https://blog.example.com --format text
# Repo - GitHub exploration
zai-tools repo tree facebook/react
zai-tools repo search vercel/next.js "app router"
zai-tools repo read anthropics/anthropic-sdk-python README.md
zai-tools repo search openai/codex "config" --language en
zai-tools repo tree openai/codex --path codex-rs --depth 2
# Doctor - check setup
zai-tools doctor
zai-tools doctor --no-vision
# OCR - extract text from images/PDFs
zai-tools ocr ./document.png
zai-tools ocr ./report.pdf --mode table --pages 1-5
# Text - LLM chat
zai-tools text "What is TypeScript?"
zai-tools text "Summarize this" --file ./doc.txt --model glm-5.1
# Image - generate images
zai-tools image "A futuristic city skyline at sunset"
zai-tools image "Portrait of a cat" --model cogview-4 --save ./output.png
# Tokenize - count tokens
zai-tools tokenize "Hello, how are you?"
# Auth - check API key
zai-tools auth status
zai-tools auth check
# Config - view and set defaults
zai-tools config show
zai-tools config set vision_model glm-5v-turbo
# Skills - browse and run skill definitions
zai-tools skill list
zai-tools skill show prd-to-appDefault output is data-only for token efficiency. Non-TTY output (piped) auto-switches to JSON. Use --output-format json or --json for structured responses:
{
"success": true,
"data": "...",
"timestamp": 1234567890
}repo searchdefaults to English results. Use--language zhfor Chinese.repo treesupports--path(directory scope) and--depth(expand subtrees).tools,tool,call,doctoraccept--no-visionto speed startup when vision tools are not needed.readsupports--with-images-summary,--no-gfm, and--keep-img-data-urlfor richer parsing control.- Vision tool calls automatically retry transient 5xx/network errors (default: 2 retries). Configure with
ZAI_MCP_VISION_RETRY_COUNT(orZAI_MCP_RETRY_COUNTfor all tools). - Tool discovery can be cached to speed
tools/tool/doctor(default: on, 24h TTL). Configure withZAI_MCP_TOOL_CACHE,ZAI_MCP_TOOL_CACHE_TTL_MS,ZAI_MCP_CACHE_DIR.
├── packages/zai-cli/ # npm package source
├── skills/zai-cli/ # Agent skill (SKILL.md)
└── .claude-plugin/ # Claude Code marketplace config
cd packages/zai-cli
npm install
npm run build
npm test
node scripts/bench-tools.mjsSee CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and guidelines.
MIT - see LICENSE.