CLI overview

Every zo command, organised by when you’d reach for it.

ZO ships ten user-facing CLI commands, plus 24 slash commands for use inside Claude Code sessions.

The canonical pipeline

zo init <project>           # 1. Scaffold memory, target, plan skeleton
zo draft -p <project>       # 2. Plan Architect drafts plan.md
zo preflight <plan.md>      # 3. Validate before spending compute
zo build <plan.md>          # 4. Launch the agent team
zo continue <project>       # 5. Resume a paused project

This is the ordering ZO assumes. Each command is designed for a specific point in the project lifecycle.

Commands

zo init

Scaffold a new project — memory files, target file, plan skeleton, delivery repo. Conversational by default; --no-tmux for headless.

zo draft

Launch the Plan Architect + scouts to draft plan.md against the schema. Confirms each section before writing.

zo preflight

Local-only validation before zo build: CLI availability, plan validity, agent definitions, memory round-trip, Docker, GPU.

zo build

Launch the agent team. Smart mode detection (fresh / continue / re-decompose on plan edit). The flagship command.

zo continue

Resume a paused project. Shorthand for zo build against the project’s known plan. Supports --repo for cross-machine.

zo status

Print the current STATE.md for a project. Phase, blockers, next steps, active agents.

zo experiments

Inspect the Phase 4 experiment registry. Subcommands: list, show <id>, diff <a> <b>.

zo gates

Inspect or toggle gate mode (supervised / auto / full-auto). Per-project.

zo migrate

Migrate legacy project state (top-level memory/{project}/) into the portable .zo/ layout in the delivery repo.

zo watch-training

Live training-metrics dashboard. Rich Live panel with progress bar, metrics table, sparkline. Auto-launched during Phase 4.

Global options

Every command accepts these:

Option	Purpose
--help	Branded help with sectioned headers (USAGE, DESCRIPTION, OPTIONS)
--version	Print zo version

Most project-aware commands also accept:

Option	Purpose
-p, --project	Project name (lookups against targets/ or .zo/config.yaml)
--repo	Path to delivery repo containing .zo/. Use when running outside the delivery repo’s cwd, especially on a new machine.
--gate-mode	supervised / auto / full-auto. See phases & gates.
--no-tmux	Disable interactive tmux flow. Falls through to headless / CI-friendly behaviour where applicable.

Modes of operation

Conversational (default)

init, draft, and build launch a tmux pane with a Claude Code session. Useful for the first run of a project — the agents inspect the host, ask clarifying questions, and confirm decisions before writing.

Headless (--no-tmux)

Skip the conversational layer. Useful for CI, scripts, and reproducible re-runs. zo init --no-tmux takes flags for every decision the conversational flow would ask about (--branch, --existing-repo, --base-image, --gpu-host, --data-path, --layout-mode).

Discovering details

zo --help                # top-level — banner + QUICK START + commands
zo build --help          # per-command — DESCRIPTION + OPTIONS
zo experiments --help    # subcommand groups — lists subcommands
zo experiments list --help

The help system is branded and sectioned (the Mintlify search box at the top of this page works on the same content).

Slash commands

Inside a running Claude Code session, ZO provides 24 slash commands organised into eight categories: project, memory, gates, observe, document, agents, engineering, utility. See the full command reference (will be migrated into Mintlify in a follow-up).

Where to next

zo init

The first command you’ll run.

zo build

The flagship command.