Airweave CLI

A command-line interface for Airweave. Search across your connected sources from any terminal. Built for developers and AI agents.

Installation

pip install airweave-cli

This installs the airweave binary.

Quick Start

# Set your API key
export AIRWEAVE_API_KEY="your-api-key"

# Search a collection
airweave search "quarterly revenue figures" --collection finance-data

# List collections
airweave collections list

Authentication

The CLI resolves credentials in this order:

1. AIRWEAVE_API_KEY environment variable
2. ~/.airweave/config.json (saved via airweave auth login)

For interactive setup:

airweave auth login

This prompts for your API key, validates it, and saves it locally.

Self-hosted

Point the CLI at your own Airweave instance:

export AIRWEAVE_BASE_URL="https://airweave.internal.corp.com"

Or set it during airweave auth login.

Commands

Search

airweave search "<query>" --collection <id> --mode classic --top-k 5

Three search modes:

• instant — Direct vector search. Fastest, best for simple lookups.
• classic — AI-optimized search with LLM-generated search plans. (default)
• agentic — Full agent loop that iteratively searches and reasons over your data.

airweave search "error logs" --mode instant
airweave search "how does auth work?"                  # classic (default)
airweave search "summarize Q4 decisions" --mode agentic

Pipe it:

airweave search "query" -c my-collection | jq '.results[0].textual_representation'

Auth

airweave auth login     # interactive setup
airweave auth status    # show current auth state
airweave auth logout    # clear saved credentials

Collections

airweave collections list                           # list all
airweave collections create --name "My Data"        # create
airweave collections get my-data-x7k9m              # get details

Sources

airweave sources list --collection my-data          # list source connections
airweave sources sync <source-connection-id>        # trigger sync
airweave sources sync <id> --force                  # full re-sync

Agent Usage

The CLI is designed for non-interactive use by AI agents. Every command:

• Outputs clean JSON to stdout (default)
• Sends all errors to stderr
• Uses correct exit codes (0 = success, 1 = error)

Environment variables

export AIRWEAVE_API_KEY="sk-..."
export AIRWEAVE_COLLECTION="my-knowledge-base"
export AIRWEAVE_BASE_URL="https://api.airweave.ai"  # optional

Piping

# Get the top result's content
airweave search "how to reset password" | jq -r '.results[0].textual_representation'

# Get the top result's source URL
airweave search "what is our refund policy" | jq -r '.results[0].web_url'

# List collection IDs
airweave collections list | jq -r '.[].readable_id'

CI / Cloud Functions

# GitHub Actions example
- name: Search Airweave
  env:
    AIRWEAVE_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.AIRWEAVE_API_KEY }}
    AIRWEAVE_COLLECTION: docs
  run: |
    result=$(airweave search "deployment guide")
    echo "$result" | jq '.results[:3]'

No SDK imports, no MCP server, no config files — just an env var and a shell.

Configuration

Config file location: ~/.airweave/config.json

{
  "api_key": "sk-...",
  "base_url": "https://api.airweave.ai",
  "collection": "my-default-collection"
}

Resolution order for all settings:

1. CLI flag (e.g. --collection)
2. Environment variable (e.g. AIRWEAVE_COLLECTION)
3. Config file
4. Default / error

Contributing

git clone https://github.com/airweave-ai/cli.git
cd cli
poetry install
poetry run airweave --help