bb-cli

Instructions for using the bb command-line tool to inspect and manage threads, projects, machines, environments, providers, skills, plugins, settings, and other BB services.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them when checking BB status, reading service configuration, operating threads, managing environments, or looking up current command options.
Why use it?
They help an agent inspect the current BB setup and use the correct commands and identifiers instead of relying on assumptions.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/get-bb/bb/bb-cli
Any agent
npx skills add get-bb/bb --skill bb-cli
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/get-bb/bb

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 39 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 645 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00039 $0.00645
Opus 5 $0.00019 $0.00322
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00129
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00064

Measured yesterday against content hash 1b4794f9cf4e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

bb-cli scanned grade A with 0 findings 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 yesterday.

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.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

apps/server/src/services/skills/builtin-skills/bb-cli/SKILL.md · 73 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 73 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

BB CLI

Use bb for BB state and actions. Inspect the current context before you choose IDs, machines, workspaces, providers, or models.

Start with context

bb status --json

Use JSON when command output controls later work. Use human output for quick inspection.

Run bb --version for the CLI version. Use bb --help or bb help [command] for help. Run bb guide for the system overview. Run bb guide for one area. Use bb --help for current flags and defaults.

A standalone CLI targets http://127.0.0.1:38886. Use BB_SERVER_URL and BB_HOST_DAEMON_PORT only for an intentional non-default target.

Read only the relevant reference

  • Read references/command-index.md to find the exact core command path. Use live help for current flags and defaults.
  • Read references/configuration.md for settings, agent instructions, skills, remote clients, and environment setup scripts.
  • Read references/thread-creation.md before you spawn or fork threads, create projects, select machines, or create environments.
  • Read references/thread-operation.md for messages, queues, interactions, panes, terminals, inspection, and long-running commands.
  • Read references/failure-recovery.md when a thread fails, stops, or needs plan or goal recovery.
  • Read references/theme-commands.md for palette and favicon commands. Read references/theming.md before you create or edit theme CSS.
  • Read references/plugins.md for plugin discovery, install, build, update, configuration, runtime, and contributed commands.
  • Read references/app-settings.md for complete app setting keys and effects.

Command habits

  • Resolve names and IDs with a list or show command before mutation.
  • Pass an explicit project when a command can act across projects.
  • Pass an environment or machine selector when the default host is uncertain.
  • Query provider models on the machine that will run the thread.
  • Prefer non-interactive commands and machine-readable output for automation.
  • Pass --yes for a confirmed destructive command in a non-interactive shell.
  • Treat plugin commands as normal top-level commands after installation.
  • Inspect real status, logs, API results, or diffs instead of assumptions.
  • Keep file paths on the machine that owns the selected workspace.

Read the full file on GitHub · 73 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.

  1. yesterday First seen · 73 lines · 39 tokens per session scan A 1b4794f9cf4e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

bb-cli is a skill published in the GitHub repository get-bb/bb (2,762 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 39 tokens to every session and 645 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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