blackbox

Blackbox CLI

Delegate coding tasks to Blackbox AI via the Hermes terminal. Blackbox is a multi-model coding agent CLI that dispatches tasks to multiple LLMs (Claude, Codex, Gemini, Blackbox Pro) and uses a judge to select the best implementation.

The CLI is open-source (GPL-3.0, TypeScript, forked from Gemini CLI) and supports interactive sessions, non-interactive one-shots, checkpointing, MCP, and vision model switching.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+ installed
• Blackbox CLI installed: npm install -g @blackboxai/cli
• Or install from source:

  git clone https://github.com/blackboxaicode/cli.git
  cd cli && npm install && npm install -g .
  

• API key from app.blackbox.ai/dashboard
• Configured: run blackbox configure and enter your API key
• Use pty=true in terminal calls — Blackbox CLI is an interactive terminal app

One-Shot Tasks

terminal(command="blackbox --prompt 'Add JWT authentication with refresh tokens to the Express API'", workdir="/path/to/project", pty=true)

For quick scratch work:

terminal(command="cd $(mktemp -d) && git init && blackbox --prompt 'Build a REST API for todos with SQLite'", pty=true)

Background Mode (Long Tasks)

For tasks that take minutes, use background mode so you can monitor progress:

# Start in background with PTY
terminal(command="blackbox --prompt 'Refactor the auth module to use OAuth 2.0'", workdir="~/project", background=true, pty=true)
# Returns session_id

# Monitor progress
process(action="poll", session_id="<id>")
process(action="log", session_id="<id>")

# Send input if Blackbox asks a question
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="yes")

# Kill if needed
process(action="kill", session_id="<id>")

Checkpoints & Resume

Blackbox CLI has built-in checkpoint support for pausing and resuming tasks:

# After a task completes, Blackbox shows a checkpoint tag
# Resume with a follow-up task:
terminal(command="blackbox --resume-checkpoint 'task-abc123-2026-03-06' --prompt 'Now add rate limiting to the endpoints'", workdir="~/project", pty=true)