helix-cli

helix-cli is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from lewing/helix.mcp. It costs 113 tokens per session (1,789 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A command-line guide for investigating .NET CI failures in Helix and Azure DevOps. CI means automated builds and tests that run when code changes.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to inspect jobs, build timelines, logs, and test results with the hlx CLI and tools such as jq.
Why use it?
It provides a shell-based fallback when the related MCP tools are unavailable or when scripted JSON output is more useful.

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/lewing/helix.mcp/helix-cli
Any agent
npx skills add lewing/helix.mcp --skill helix-cli
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/lewing/helix.mcp

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.

agentmods badge for helix-cli

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/lewing/helix.mcp/helix-cli.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/lewing/helix.mcp/helix-cli)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/lewing/helix.mcp/helix-cli"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/lewing/helix.mcp/helix-cli.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 113 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,789 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 $0.00113 $0.01789
Opus 5 $0.00056 $0.00894
Sonnet 5 $0.00023 $0.00358
Haiku 4.5 $0.00011 $0.00179

Measured 5d ago against content hash 98295e53481c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

helix-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 5d 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.

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.

.github/skills/helix-cli/SKILL.md · 123 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 123 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Helix CLI

Investigate Helix and Azure DevOps CI failures with hlx when you want shell pipelines, --json, and jq without loading the MCP toolset into context.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

  • You want hlx describe as the fastest first step to understand which MCP-equivalent investigation commands exist before drilling into help or schemas.
  • Helix/AzDO MCP tools are not loaded, but hlx is installed or available via dotnet run.
  • You want to script investigations with shell pipelines, --json, and optionally jq.
  • You need to move quickly through a build → timeline → logs → tests workflow without paying the context cost of loading many tools.
  • You are working in a plain terminal, CI job, or one-off bash session where CLI output is easier than MCP round-trips. Prefer MCP tools or the ci-analysis skill when those tools are already loaded in context. The CLI is the context-efficient fallback.

Installation

Zero-install (requires .NET 10 SDK):

dnx lewing.helix.mcp <command>

Or install as a global tool:

dotnet tool install -g lewing.helix.mcp

Local repo fallback:

dotnet run --project src/HelixTool -- <command>

Examples in this skill use hlx; replace with the dnx or dotnet run form if needed.

Authentication

hlx supports anonymous access for public data and explicit auth for private Helix/AzDO.

  • Helix: set HELIX_ACCESS_TOKEN=... or run hlx login; hlx logout removes the stored token.
  • AzDO: resolution order is AZDO_TOKEN → Azure CLI / az loginaz account get-access-token → anonymous for public projects such as dnceng-public/public.
  • Useful checks:
hlx auth-status
hlx azdo auth-status --json

Progressive Discovery

hlx describe
hlx describe azdo search-log
hlx azdo search-log --schema
hlx azdo search-log --help
  1. hlx describe — routing: which command handles what?
  2. hlx describe <command> — usage: parameters, defaults, and --schema hints.
  3. hlx <command> --schema — full JSON output shape (when you need exact nesting).
  4. <command> --help — all flags and arguments. hlx llms-txt still exists for compact CLI notes, but describe is now the recommended discovery path for agents. There is no hlx ci-guide CLI command yet; use helix_ci_guide(repo) / ci://profiles when MCP is available.

Read the full file on GitHub · 123 lines

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. 5d ago First seen · 123 lines · 113 tokens per session scan A 98295e53481c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

helix-cli is a skill published in the GitHub repository lewing/helix.mcp (4 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 113 tokens to every session and 1,789 once invoked, about $0.0006 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 2026-08-31.