Perplexity CLI Skill

Overview

Perplexity CLI is a command-line interface for Perplexity AI that allows AI-powered searches directly from the terminal with support for multiple models, streaming output, and file attachments.

Prerequisites

# Verify installation
perplexity --help

Quick Reference

Command	Description
perplexity "query" --mode pro --json	Search with pro mode and JSON output

Mode	Flag	Description
pro	--mode pro	Deep search with reasoning (default)

Common Operations

Basic Query

perplexity "What is quantum computing?" --mode pro --json

Read Query from File, Save Response

perplexity -f question.md -o answer.md --mode pro --json

Query with Sources

perplexity "Climate research" --sources web,scholar --mode pro --json

All Flags

Flag	Short	Description
--json		Output in JSON format (REQUIRED for scripts)
--mode		Search mode
--sources	-s	Sources: web,scholar,social
--language	-l	Response language (e.g., en-US, pt-BR)
--file	-f	Read query from file
--output	-o	Save response to file

Best Practices

1. ALWAYS use --mode pro --json for all queries (pro mode with JSON output)
2. DO NOT use --model flag - model is configured by the user in config
3. Use -f and -o flags for batch processing

Piping and Scripting

# Pipe query from stdin (JSON output)
echo "What is Go?" | perplexity --mode pro --json

# Use in scripts (JSON output REQUIRED)
RESPONSE=$(perplexity "Quick answer" --mode pro --json 2>/dev/null)

# Batch processing (JSON output)
cat questions.txt | while read q; do
  perplexity "$q" --mode pro -o "answers/$(echo $q | md5sum | cut -c1-8).md" --json
done