Orca CLI overview

The Orca CLI is a terminal command that drives a running Orca editor — create and inspect worktrees, drive terminals, automate the built-in browser. It ships with the desktop app; register it under Settings → Experimental → CLI.

Orca CLI — drive worktrees, terminals, and the built-in browser from any shell

Install & verify

command -v orca
orca status --json

Worktree commands

orca worktree ps --json
orca worktree create --repo id:<repoId> --name my-task --issue 123 --json
orca worktree current --json
orca worktree set --worktree active --comment "reproduced bug" --json
orca worktree rm --worktree id:<id> --force --json

Terminal commands

orca terminal list --json
orca terminal read --json
orca terminal send --text "continue" --enter --json
orca terminal wait --for tui-idle --timeout-ms 30000 --json
orca terminal create --worktree path:/projects/app --command "npm test" --json
orca terminal split --direction vertical --command "npm run dev" --json

Tab profiles

Tab profiles capture a worktree's current pane / tab layout so a script can recreate it later — useful for spinning up a known-good debug environment from a hook or skill. The CLI exposes lifecycle commands (list, save, apply, remove) under orca tab-profile. Run orca tab-profile --help for the current flag set; this surface is still settling.

Browser automation

The CLI also drives the built-in browser with a snapshot-interact-re-snapshot loop:

orca goto --url https://example.com --json
orca snapshot --json     # returns refs like @e1, @e3
orca click --element @e3 --json
orca fill --element @e1 --value "user@example.com" --json
orca screenshot --json