agent-clifs 1.1.2

A CLI-driven virtual filesystem for AI agents

agent-clifs

A virtual filesystem for AI agents. Unix commands they already know. Zero dependencies.

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Load documents, codebases, or any text into an in-memory filesystem and let your AI agent explore it with ls, grep, find, tree, and more.

Install

pip install agent-clifs

Quick Start

from agent_clifs import AgentCLI

cli = AgentCLI()

# Load your documentation
cli.execute("mkdir -p /docs/api")
cli.execute("write /docs/api/users.md '# Users API\nGET /users\nPOST /users'")
cli.execute("write /docs/api/auth.md '# Auth API\nPOST /auth/login'")

# An agent explores just like a developer would
cli.execute("tree /docs")              # See the structure
cli.execute("grep -rn 'POST' /docs")   # Search for patterns
cli.execute("view /docs/api/users.md 1 5")  # Read specific lines

Bulk Loading

The most common pattern — load from a dictionary:

from agent_clifs import AgentCLI, VirtualFileSystem

vfs = VirtualFileSystem()
vfs.load_from_dict({
    "/src/app.py": "from flask import Flask\napp = Flask(__name__)",
    "/src/models.py": "class User:\n    ...",
    "/docs/setup.md": "# Setup\nRun `pip install -r requirements.txt`",
})

cli = AgentCLI(vfs)
cli.execute("find /src -name '*.py'")

Use with Any Agent Framework

Just pass cli.execute as a tool function:

from langchain.tools import Tool

tool = Tool(
    name="filesystem",
    description="Execute filesystem commands: ls, cat, grep, find, tree, view, head, tail, wc",
    func=cli.execute,
)

Works the same way with LlamaIndex, CrewAI, or any framework that accepts a callable.

LLM-Optimized Mode

Pass structured=True for token-efficient output — no box-drawing characters, type-annotated entries, results grouped by file:

cli = AgentCLI(structured=True)

# grep (standard)                   # grep (structured)
/docs/api/auth.md:3:POST /api/auth   [/docs/api/auth.md]
/docs/api/users.md:3:POST /api/users   L3: POST /api/auth
                                     [/docs/api/users.md]
                                       L3: POST /api/users

Commands

Command	Description	Key Flags
ls	List directory	-l -h -R -S -a -d -1
grep	Search contents	-r -i -n -l -c -v -w -F -A/-B/-C --include --exclude
find	Find files	-name -iname -type -path -maxdepth -mindepth
view	Read with line range	view <file> [start] [end]
cat	Display files	-n -s
tree	Directory tree	-L -d -a
head/tail	First/last lines	-n -c
wc	Count lines/words	-l -w -c
mkdir	Create directory	-p -v
cp	Copy	-r -a -n -v
mv	Move/rename	-n -v
rm	Remove	-r -f -v
write	Write to file	write <path> <content>
append	Append to file	append <path> <content>
touch	Create empty file	-c
pwd/cd	Navigate	cd - cd ~

Python API

from agent_clifs import VirtualFileSystem

vfs = VirtualFileSystem()
vfs.load_from_dict({"/file.txt": "hello"})  # bulk load
content = vfs.read_file("/file.txt")         # read
vfs.write_file("/new.txt", "world")          # write
snapshot = vfs.to_dict()                     # export {path: content}

Setup for PyPI Publishing

This project uses GitHub Actions with trusted publishing. See .github/workflows/release.yml.

License

Unlicense — public domain.