What is paperclip-cli?

A guide to using the Paperclip command-line tool, which operates an AI-agent company through a local instance and server API.

Use it to start and diagnose Paperclip, configure access, manage agents and projects, trigger runs, handle approvals and budgets, and operate related plugins.

It explains the difference between local setup commands and commands that control companies, agents, tasks, budgets, and runs through the API.

paperclip-cli — Skill for Claude Code and Codex by aronprins

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent

npx skills add aronprins/paperclip-cli --skill paperclip-cli

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/aronprins/paperclip-cli

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/aronprins/paperclip-cli/paperclip-cli/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/aronprins/paperclip-cli/paperclip-cli)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/aronprins/paperclip-cli/paperclip-cli"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/aronprins/paperclip-cli/paperclip-cli/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/aronprins/paperclip-cli/paperclip-cli"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/aronprins/paperclip-cli/paperclip-cli.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 138 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 3,639 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan A 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00138	$0.03639
Opus 5.5	$0.00055	$0.01456
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00028	$0.00728
Haiku 4.5	$0.00014	$0.00364

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 8a8fe8a705a1, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

paperclip-cli scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

curl -s "$PAPERCLIP_API_URL/api/health" # is the server even up

SKILL.md · 148 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 148 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Operating the Paperclip CLI (`paperclipai`)

Core mental model

Two layers. Setup commands (onboard, doctor, configure, run with no subcommand, db:backup, worktree*, env-lab) operate on local config/DB under ~/.paperclip and need no credential. Control-plane commands (everything else: company, issue, agent, run <sub>, routine, budget, ...) are HTTP clients for the server API and need an API base + credential.
The CLI never runs the model. Agent work executes server-side in the Paperclip runtime/adapters. The CLI triggers (agent wake, heartbeat run) and observes (run *). You conduct; the server computes. Sole exception: agent local-cli sets up your machine so a local AI acts as that agent and reports back via the API.
Two personas: board operator (instance-wide authority; bootstraps, builds the org, mints credentials) and agent (scoped to exactly one company + one agent). Matching credentials: board API token (token board create, named/expirable/revocable) and agent API key (token agent create, plaintext shown once).
API base resolution, first match wins: --api-base → PAPERCLIP_API_URL → profile apiBase → local config port → http://localhost:3100.
Context profiles (~/.paperclip/context.json) store defaults per profile: apiBase, companyId, persona, agentId. They store apiKeyEnvVarName — the name of an env var, never a plaintext secret. The token stays in your environment.

Quick environment check

Run these first to see what you already have:

env | grep '^PAPERCLIP_'        # PAPERCLIP_API_URL / _COMPANY_ID / _AGENT_ID / _API_KEY already exported?
paperclipai context show         # active profile: apiBase, companyId, persona, apiKeyEnvVarName, contextPath
paperclipai whoami --json        # which identity the current credential resolves to
curl -s "$PAPERCLIP_API_URL/api/health"   # is the server even up

If the four PAPERCLIP_* env vars are set, you are almost certainly running as an agent persona already — operate with them directly, no profile needed.

Read the full file on GitHub · 148 lines

Files

What ships with it

9 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

1mo ago First seen · 148 lines · 138 tokens per session scan A 8a8fe8a705a1

Subscribe to this mod's changes

paperclip-cli is a skill published in the GitHub repository aronprins/paperclip-cli (18 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 138 tokens to every session and 3,639 once invoked, about $0.0006 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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paperclip-cli