Glean CLI

Your company's knowledge, search, and AI — from the command line.

Search across your company's knowledge, chat with Glean Assistant, manage the full Glean API surface, and integrate Glean into automated workflows — all without leaving the terminal.

Installation

# Homebrew (recommended)
brew install gleanwork/tap/glean-cli

# Manual
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gleanwork/glean-cli/main/install.sh | sh

Pre-built binaries for macOS, Linux, and Windows are available on the Releases page.

Quick Start

# 1. Authenticate
glean auth login                          # OAuth via browser (recommended)
# — OR set env vars for CI/CD:
# export GLEAN_HOST=your-company-be.glean.com GLEAN_API_TOKEN=your-token

# 2. Search
glean search "vacation policy"

# 3. Chat
glean chat "Summarize our Q1 engineering goals"

# 4. Open the interactive TUI
glean

Why Glean CLI?

If your workflow involves searching Glean, asking Glean AI questions, or wiring Glean data into scripts or agent pipelines — the CLI is faster than a browser tab and composable with everything else in your terminal.

Every command returns structured JSON. Use --dry-run to preview requests before they're sent. Use glean schema <command> to get machine-readable flag documentation. Results pipe cleanly to jq, scripts, or any tool that reads stdin.

# Discover what commands are available
glean schema | jq '.commands'

# Preview a request before sending
glean search --dry-run --datasource confluence "Q1 planning"

# Parse results with jq — each result has .title and nested .document fields
glean search "onboarding" | jq '.results[].title'

# Stream results as NDJSON — one SearchResult object per line
glean search "engineering docs" --output ndjson | jq .title

Authentication

OAuth (recommended)

glean auth login    # opens browser, completes PKCE flow
glean auth status   # verify credentials, host, and token expiry
glean auth logout   # remove all stored credentials

OAuth uses PKCE with Dynamic Client Registration — no client ID required. Tokens are stored securely in the system keyring and refreshed automatically.

For instances that don't support OAuth, auth login falls back to prompting for an API token.

API Token (CI/CD)

Set credentials via environment variables — no interactive login needed:

export GLEAN_API_TOKEN=your-token
export GLEAN_HOST=your-company-be.glean.com
glean search "test"

Credentials are resolved in this order: environment variables → system keyring → ~/.glean/config.json.

Interactive TUI

Running glean with no arguments opens a full-screen chat powered by Glean Assistant.

glean            # open TUI
glean --continue # resume the most recent session

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
`enter`	Send message
`↑` / `↓`	Scroll history / navigate command picker
`ctrl+r`	New session
`ctrl+l`	Clear screen
`ctrl+y`	Copy last response
`ctrl+h`	Toggle help
`ctrl+c` / `esc`	Quit

Slash Commands

Type / in the input to open the command picker:

Command	Description
`/mode auto\|fast\|advanced`	Switch agent reasoning depth
`/clear`	Start a new session
`/help`	Show keyboard shortcuts

File Attachments

Type @ followed by a filename to attach a local file to your message. The file's contents are sent as context to Glean AI.

@go.mod          # attach go.mod from current directory
@src/config.go   # attach a specific file

Use ↑/↓ to navigate matches, Enter to attach, Esc to dismiss.

Commands

Core

Command	Description
`glean search <query>`	Search across your company's knowledge
`glean chat <message>`	Chat with Glean Assistant (non-interactive)
`glean api <endpoint>`	Make a raw authenticated HTTP request to the Glean REST API
`glean schema [command]`	Show machine-readable JSON schema for any command
`glean mcp`	Start a stdio MCP server for AI agent integration
`glean auth`	Authenticate with Glean
`glean version`	Print the CLI version

`glean search`

glean search "vacation policy"
glean search "Q1 planning" --datasource confluence --page-size 5
glean search "docs" --fields "results.document.title,results.document.url"
glean search "docs" --output ndjson | jq .title
glean search --json '{"query":"onboarding","pageSize":3}'
glean search --dry-run "test"

Flag	Description
`--output` / `--format`	`json` (default), `ndjson` (one result per line), `text`
`--fields`	Dot-path field projection — prefix paths with `results.`
`--datasource` / `-d`	Filter by datasource (repeatable)
`--type` / `-t`	Filter by document type (repeatable)
`--page-size`	Results per page (default 10)
`--json`	Raw SDK request body (overrides all flags)
`--dry-run`	Print request body without sending

`glean chat`

glean chat "What are our company holidays?"
glean chat --timeout 120000 "Summarize all Q1 OKRs across teams"
glean chat --json '{"messages":[{"author":"USER","messageType":"CONTENT","fragments":[{"text":"What is Glean?"}]}]}'
glean chat --dry-run "test"

Flag	Description
`--timeout`	Request timeout in milliseconds (default 60000)
`--json`	Raw SDK request body (overrides all flags)
`--dry-run`	Print request body without sending
`--save`	Persist chat for continuation (default true)

`glean api`

Raw authenticated HTTP access to any Glean REST API endpoint (relative to /rest/api/v1/).

glean api search --method POST --raw-field '{"query":"rust","pageSize":3}'
glean api --preview search --method POST --raw-field '{"query":"test"}'

API Namespace Commands

All namespace commands accept --json, --output, and --dry-run. Run glean <command> --help for full usage.

Namespace	Subcommands	Description
`glean agents`	`list`, `get`, `schemas`, `run`	Manage and invoke Glean AI agents
`glean answers`	`list`, `get`, `create`, `update`, `delete`	Curated Q&A pairs
`glean announcements`	`create`, `update`, `delete`	Time-bounded company announcements
`glean collections`	`list`, `get`, `create`, `update`, `delete`, `add-items`, `delete-item`	Curated document collections
`glean documents`	`get`, `summarize`, `get-by-facets`, `get-permissions`	Document retrieval and summarization
`glean entities`	`list`, `read-people`	People, teams, and custom entities
`glean insights`	`get`	Search and usage analytics
`glean messages`	`get`	Retrieve indexed messages (Slack, Teams, etc.)
`glean pins`	`list`, `get`, `create`, `update`, `remove`	Promoted search results
`glean shortcuts`	`list`, `get`, `create`, `update`, `delete`	Go-links / memorable short URLs
`glean tools`	`list`, `run`	Glean platform tools
`glean verification`	`list`, `verify`, `remind`	Document verification and review
`glean activity`	`report`, `feedback`	User activity reporting

Example payloads

# Retrieve a document by URL
glean documents get --json '{"documentSpecs":[{"url":"https://..."}]}'

# Summarize a document
glean documents summarize --json '{"documentSpecs":[{"url":"https://..."}]}'

# Look up people
glean entities list --json '{"entityType":"PEOPLE","query":"engineering"}'

# Create a go-link
glean shortcuts create --json '{"data":{"inputAlias":"onboarding","destinationUrl":"https://..."}}'

# Create a shortcut with a variable template
glean shortcuts create --json '{"data":{"inputAlias":"jira","urlTemplate":"https://jira.example.com/browse/{arg}"}}'

# Pin a result for a query
glean pins create --json '{"queries":["onboarding"],"documentId":"https://..."}'

# List available AI agents
glean agents list | jq '.SearchAgentsResponse.agents[] | {id: .agent_id, name: .name}'

# Run an agent
glean agents run --json '{"agent_id":"<id>"}'

Agent Workflow

The CLI is designed as a first-class tool for AI coding agents. Every command returns JSON on stdout and errors on stderr with non-zero exit codes.

# 1. Discover all available commands
glean schema | jq '.commands'

# 2. Understand a command's flags
glean schema search | jq '.flags | keys'
glean schema search | jq '.flags["--output"]'

# 3. Preview the exact request before sending
glean shortcuts create --dry-run \
  --json '{"data":{"inputAlias":"test","destinationUrl":"https://example.com"}}'

# 4. Execute and parse results
glean search "engineering values" | jq '.results[].title'

# 5. Stream NDJSON for large result sets — one SearchResult object per line
glean search "all docs" --output ndjson --page-size 50 | jq .title

MCP Server

For AI agents that support MCP, run glean mcp to expose Glean as an MCP tool server:

glean mcp

Add to .claude/settings.json for Claude Code:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "glean": { "command": "glean", "args": ["mcp"] }
  }
}

Available MCP tools: glean_search, glean_chat, glean_schema, glean_people.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
`GLEAN_API_TOKEN`	API token — overrides keyring and config file
`GLEAN_HOST`	Glean backend hostname (e.g. `your-company-be.glean.com`)

Environment variables take precedence over stored configuration.

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
`0`	Success
`1`	General error (authentication failure, API error, invalid input)

All error details are written to stderr. Stdout contains only structured output (JSON/NDJSON/text), making the CLI safe for piping.

Shell Completions

glean completion bash   # Bash
glean completion zsh    # Zsh
glean completion fish   # Fish

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, coding conventions, and how to submit pull requests.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 204 Commits
.github		.github
cmd		cmd
demo		demo
internal		internal
skills		skills
.gitattributes		.gitattributes
.gitignore		.gitignore
.golangci.yml		.golangci.yml
.goreleaser.yml		.goreleaser.yml
CLAUDE.md		CLAUDE.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
RELEASE.md		RELEASE.md
SECURITY.md		SECURITY.md
coverage.out		coverage.out
go.mod		go.mod
go.sum		go.sum
install.sh		install.sh
main.go		main.go
mise.toml		mise.toml
openapitools.json		openapitools.json
taskfile.yml		taskfile.yml

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Glean CLI

Contents

Installation

Quick Start

Why Glean CLI?

Authentication

OAuth (recommended)

API Token (CI/CD)

Interactive TUI

Keyboard Shortcuts

Slash Commands

File Attachments

Commands

Core

`glean search`

`glean chat`

`glean api`

API Namespace Commands

Example payloads

Agent Workflow

MCP Server

Environment Variables

Exit Codes

Shell Completions

Contributing

License

About

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Glean CLI

Contents

Installation

Quick Start

Why Glean CLI?

Authentication

OAuth (recommended)

API Token (CI/CD)

Interactive TUI

Keyboard Shortcuts

Slash Commands

File Attachments

Commands

Core

glean search

glean chat

glean api

API Namespace Commands

Example payloads

Agent Workflow

MCP Server

Environment Variables

Exit Codes

Shell Completions

Contributing

License

About

Resources

License

Contributing

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