Slash Commands

Slash commands turn markdown files into reusable, parameterized prompt templates: drop review-pr.md into .chatcli/commands/ and /review-pr 1326 security becomes a full, expanded prompt — in the REPL, inside a running /coder session, in one-shot -p scripts, through the messaging gateway, and over ACP and MCP. Expansion happens before the request is built, so commands work identically with every provider ChatCLI supports. And if your team already keeps commands for Claude Code, Devin, Windsurf, Cursor, opencode, Codex, Gemini CLI, Qwen Code or GitHub Copilot, those files work here unchanged — zero migration.

Commands vs. skills

	Skill	Slash command
What it is	Knowledge — “how we do X here”	Action — “do X now with these args”
Where it lands	Guidance block in the system prompt	Becomes the user turn itself
Lifecycle	Sticky, ages out, re-triggers	One-shot, consumed
Parameterization	Args attached alongside	`$ARGUMENTS` / `$1`…`$9` interpolated

Both appear in the completer and in the /menu palette.

Where commands live

Scanned in precedence order — first hit for a name wins. Native ChatCLI dirs come first, then the interop matrix: if your team already uses any of these agent CLIs, their command files work in ChatCLI unchanged.

Source	Project	Global	Format
ChatCLI	`.chatcli/commands/`	`~/.chatcli/commands/`	md
Claude Code	`.claude/commands/`	—	md
Devin	`.devin/workflows/`	—	md
Windsurf	`.windsurf/workflows/`	—	md
Cursor	`.cursor/commands/`	`~/.cursor/commands/`	md
opencode	`.opencode/commands/`	`~/.config/opencode/commands/`	md
Codex (OpenAI)	—	`~/.codex/prompts/` (top-level only)	md
Gemini CLI	`.gemini/commands/`	`~/.gemini/commands/`	TOML
Qwen Code	`.qwen/commands/`	`~/.qwen/commands/`	TOML
GitHub Copilot	`.github/prompts/*.prompt.md`	—	md

Subdirectories become namespaces: frontend/deploy.md → /frontend:deploy (Gemini’s git/commit.toml → /git:commit). Foreign frontmatter keys (agent, subtask, mode, auto_execute_steps) are tolerated; opencode’s model maps to ChatCLI’s model hint. Frontmatter that isn’t even valid YAML — like Codex’s own documented argument-hint: [FILES=<paths>] shape — falls back to a line-wise read instead of dropping the file. A command can never shadow a built-in command — files named session.md, config.md etc. are refused and reported in /config commands.

Anatomy of a command

---
description: Review a pull request with a given focus
argument-hint: <pr-number> [focus]
model: claude-sonnet-5
effort: high
allowed-tools: read, search
---
! gh pr view $1 --json title,body

Review PR $1 focusing on $ARGUMENTS.
Ground every finding in the diff above.

Frontmatter	Effect
`description`	Shown in the completer, `/menu`, ACP and MCP listings
`argument-hint`	Usage nudge shown when invoked without args
`model` / `effort`	Route the expanded turn (same cross-provider hint plumbing as skills)
`allowed-tools`	Restricts tools during the run the command initiates (see below)

Placeholders (every dialect’s syntax works in every file):

Placeholder	Meaning
`$ARGUMENTS`	Raw argument string, verbatim
`{{args}}`	Gemini/Qwen alias for the same
`$1`…`$9`	Positional arguments (`KEY=value` tokens excluded)
`$KEY`	Codex-style named argument: invoke with `/draftpr FILES="a b" PR_TITLE="Add hero"`
`$$`	Literal `$`

Unknown $WORDS pass through untouched.

Pre-execution lines (`!`)

A line starting with ! runs a shell command and embeds its output into the expanded prompt. The inline dialects work too — Gemini’s !{cmd} and opencode’s !`cmd` substitute in place mid-sentence. Every occurrence, whole-line or inline, goes through the same security gate as coder tools:

Safety-immune commands (rm -rf, sudo, …) always require interactive approval — never auto-approved, not even by automode.
Your /policy rules apply (allow / ask / deny), and approval decisions can persist new rules (allow-always / deny-forever).
On unattended surfaces (gateway, MCP, ACP, scheduler) an “ask” resolves through /policy automode — or fails safe to deny. A denied line is replaced by an explicit marker so the model knows the output is missing, never silently empty.

Lines inside fenced code blocks are never executed — documentation stays documentation.

`allowed-tools`

When set, the run initiated by the command gets an ephemeral overlay on the security gate: a tool outside the list escalates from allow to ask — the human (or policy automode) arbitrates the exception. It never silently widens permissions and never silently denies.

Surfaces

Surface	Behavior
REPL chat	`/name args` dispatches like any command; completer + `/menu` list the catalog
`/coder` mid-run	Follow-ups and type-ahead expand too; `allowed-tools` re-arms the scope, `model`/`effort` are ignored mid-loop
One-shot	`chatcli -p "/review-pr 1326"` expands before routing
Gateway	A channel message `/deploy prod` expands before the coder engine sees it
ACP (IDEs)	Commands are advertised via `available_commands_update` with input hints, and expand in the prompt flow
MCP server	Served through the `prompts` primitive — `prompts/list` carries the spec `arguments` field, `prompts/get` accepts `{"args": "..."}`
The model itself	The `@commands` builtin lets the agent discover (`list`) and expand (`get`) the team’s playbooks mid-task

Managing

/config commands          # diagnostics panel (below)
/config commands reload   # force a re-scan (file edits are picked up automatically too)
/reload                   # also re-scans the catalog

The panel groups the catalog by source with counts and argument hints, then the failure ledgers — commands refused for shadowing a built-in and files skipped with the parse reason — and every scanned directory with a ✓/– existence marker:

⌘ Slash Commands ─────────────────────────
  9 command(s) from 4 source(s)

  ▸ Project (.chatcli/commands) (2)
    /deploy       Deploy service          <env>
    /review-pr    Review a PR             <pr> [focus]

  ▸ Gemini CLI (1)
    /git:commit   Writes a conventional commit

  ⚠ Skipped (failed to parse — fix the file and it loads on the next scan):
    ~/.gemini/commands/broken.toml
      unterminated """ string

  Scanned directories (precedence order):
    ✓ ~/project/.chatcli/commands
    – ~/project/.claude/commands

The catalog is served from a stat-fingerprint cache: lookups are free until a file actually changes.

Environment variable	Default	Effect
`CHATCLI_COMMANDS`	`true`	Master switch for the whole feature

Example: team standup

mkdir -p .chatcli/commands
cat > .chatcli/commands/standup.md <<'EOF'
---
description: Standup summary from recent commits
argument-hint: [days]
---
! git log --oneline --since="$1 days ago" | head -20

Based on the commits above, write a 3-bullet standup summary.
EOF

Commit it — everyone on the team (and their agents, via @commands) now has /standup 2.

Home

Getting Started

Core Concepts

Features

Security

Support

Commands vs. skills

Where commands live

Anatomy of a command

Pre-execution lines (`!`)

`allowed-tools`

Surfaces

Managing

Example: team standup

​Commands vs. skills

​Where commands live

​Anatomy of a command

​Pre-execution lines (!)

​allowed-tools

​Surfaces

​Managing

​Example: team standup

Commands vs. skills

Where commands live

Anatomy of a command

Pre-execution lines (`!`)

`allowed-tools`

Surfaces

Managing

Example: team standup