ZAI CLI

Access Z.AI capabilities via npx zai-cli. The CLI is self-documenting - use --help at any level.

Setup

export Z_AI_API_KEY="your-api-key"

Get a key at: https://z.ai/manage-apikey/apikey-list

Commands

Command	Purpose	Help
vision	Analyze images, screenshots, videos	`--help` for 8 subcommands
search	Real-time web search	`--help` for filtering options
read	Fetch web pages as markdown	`--help` for format options
repo	GitHub code search and reading	`--help` for tree/search/read
tools	List available MCP tools
tool	Show tool schema
call	Raw MCP tool invocation
code	TypeScript tool chaining
doctor	Check setup and connectivity

Quick Start

# Analyze an image
npx zai-cli vision analyze ./screenshot.png "What errors do you see?"

# Search the web
npx zai-cli search "React 19 new features" --count 5

# Read a web page
npx zai-cli read https://docs.example.com/api
npx zai-cli read https://docs.example.com/api --with-images-summary --no-gfm

# Explore a GitHub repo
npx zai-cli repo search facebook/react "server components"
npx zai-cli repo search openai/codex "config" --language en
npx zai-cli repo tree openai/codex --path codex-rs --depth 2

# Check setup
npx zai-cli doctor

Output

Default: data-only (raw output for token efficiency). Use --output-format json for { success, data, timestamp } wrapping.

Advanced

For raw MCP tool calls (tools, tool, call), Code Mode, and performance tuning (cache/retries), see references/advanced.md.