CLI Reference

All commands use the pattern: syke [--user <id>] <command>. The --user flag defaults to SYKE_USER from .env.

Global flags: --user/-u (user ID), --verbose/-v (debug logging), --version.

Common Workflows

pip install syke
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
syke --user you setup --yes

syke --user you ingest github --username your-username
syke --user you sync

syke --user you status
syke --user you timeline --limit 10

Detection

syke detect                              # Scan for available data sources

Checks for Claude Code sessions in ~/.claude/, ChatGPT export ZIPs in ~/Downloads/, GitHub via gh CLI or GITHUB_TOKEN, and Gmail via gog CLI or Python OAuth.

Setup

syke --user <id> setup [--yes/-y]        # Full automated pipeline

Runs detect, ingest, perceive, output, MCP injection, hooks, and daemon install in sequence.

Flags:

• --yes/-y — Auto-consent to private source ingestion
• --skip-mcp — Skip MCP server config injection into ~/.claude/settings.json
• --skip-hooks — Skip Claude Code lifecycle hooks installation
• --skip-daemon — Skip LaunchAgent background daemon install

Ingestion

syke --user <id> ingest claude-code [--yes/-y]
syke --user <id> ingest chatgpt -f <zip> [--yes/-y]
syke --user <id> ingest github --username <name>
syke --user <id> ingest gmail [--yes/-y] [--account <email>] [--max-results N] [--days N] [--query <q>]
syke --user <id> ingest all [--yes/-y]

ingest all runs all available adapters in sequence (Claude Code, GitHub, Gmail). GitHub username is auto-detected via gh CLI.

Perception

syke --user <id> perceive                # Agentic (default)
syke --user <id> perceive --legacy       # Legacy single-shot
syke --user <id> perceive -m agentic-v2  # Multi-agent (3 Sonnet + Opus)
syke --user <id> perceive -m meta        # ALMA meta-learning (experimental, requires experiments/)

Flags:

• --full/--incremental — Full rebuild or incremental update (default: full)
• --legacy — Use legacy single-shot perception
• --method/-m — Choose method: agentic (default), agentic-v2, legacy, meta

The meta method requires the experiments/ directory (not shipped in the PyPI package).

Output

syke --user <id> profile -f json         # JSON (default)
syke --user <id> profile -f markdown     # Markdown
syke --user <id> profile -f claude-md    # CLAUDE.md format
syke --user <id> profile -f user-md      # USER.md format
syke --user <id> profile -o output.md    # Write to file
syke --user <id> inject -t <dir> -f claude-md

Flags:

• --format/-f — Output format: json, markdown, claude-md, user-md
• --output/-o — Write output to a file instead of stdout

Distribution

syke --user <id> serve --transport stdio  # MCP server (Claude Code)
syke --user <id> serve --transport http   # MCP server (HTTP, default port 3847)

Flags:

• --transport — stdio (default) or http
• --port — Port for HTTP transport (default: 3847)

Note: --transport http uses streamable-http internally.

Exploration

syke --user <id> status                  # Data summary (sources, event counts, profile info)
syke --user <id> timeline                # Event timeline table
syke --user <id> show <query>            # Search events and display full content

timeline

Flags:

• --since — ISO date to filter from
• --limit/-n — Max events to show (default: 50)
• --source/-s — Filter by source platform
• --format/-f — Output format: table (default) or json

show

Search events by keyword and display full content with metadata in panels.

Flags:

• --limit/-n — Max results (default: 5)
• --source/-s — Filter by source platform

Sync

syke --user <id> sync                    # Re-ingest + incremental perceive
syke --user <id> sync --agentic          # Use agentic perception for update

Re-ingests all previously-ingested sources (with dedup and mtime optimization), runs incremental perception if new events are found, and updates distribution files.

Flags:

• --full-perceive — Force full perception instead of incremental
• --skip-perception — Only sync data, skip perception
• --agentic — Use agentic perception (Opus crawls with tools)

Daemon

syke --user <id> daemon-start            # Start background sync daemon
syke --user <id> daemon-stop             # Stop background sync daemon
syke --user <id> daemon-status           # Check daemon status

Background sync daemon runs every 15 minutes (configurable). Automatically skips perception when no new events exist to save cost. Also integrated into syke setup with interactive prompt.