napcat-cli 2.2.0

Standalone CLI and daemon for NapCat QQ bot management with skills-fs integration

napcat-cli

Standalone CLI and daemon for NapCat QQ bot management with skills-fs integration.

介绍博文： napcat-cli 群配置与管理速查 — 从零配置、群消息收发、Agent Wake 的完整链路。

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napcat-cli provides a CLI for all NapCat API operations, a WebSocket daemon that bridges to a skills-fs HTTP provider, and an agent wake-up mechanism for integrating with Hermes or other AI agents.

napcat send group 123456 -m "Hello"
napcat send private 987654 -m "Hi"
napcat recall 1001
napcat events --limit 10
napcat daemon start
napcat wake --reason NEW_MESSAGE

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Commands

Command	Description
napcat api <endpoint>	Raw API access (like gh api)
napcat send group <id> -m "msg"	Send group message
napcat send private <id> -m "msg"	Send private message
napcat reply <id> -m "msg"	Reply to a message
napcat recall <msg_id>	Recall a message
napcat group <sub>	Group list, members, settings
napcat friend <sub>	Friend list, info
napcat file <sub>	File upload, download, list
napcat events	Read events from SQLite
napcat alerts [--clear]	Pending alerts
napcat status	Bot online status
napcat config get/set	Configuration management
napcat daemon start/stop/status/restart	Watch daemon
napcat fs tree	Skills-fs directory tree
napcat wake [--reason R] [--prompt P] [--transport T] [--dry-run]	Wake the configured agent (HTTP/CLI, auto-fallback)
napcat setup	Interactive setup wizard
napcat phone	Textual phone-style TUI

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Setup

uv tool install napcat-cli  # recommended — isolated install via uv (alternative: pip install napcat-cli)
napcat setup          # interactive — guides token, data dir, skills-fs, wake
napcat daemon start

The setup wizard writes two config files:

• <data_dir>/config.json — API URL, token, self_id, ports, triggers
• <data_dir>/daemon.json — All fields consumed by watch.py including skills_fs_* settings

Non-interactive mode uses defaults:

napcat setup --non-interactive  # no prompts, validates token
napcat setup --yes              # skip token validation
napcat setup --force            # overwrite existing config

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Agent Wake

When a notable QQ event arrives, the daemon wakes an external agent (Hermes by default) carrying a contextual prompt so it can read the inbox and reply. The wake mechanism is generic and pluggable — Hermes is just the default preset; any HTTP endpoint or shell command works.

How it works

QQ Event (WS) --> EventProcessor --> WakeOrchestrator (debounce/cooldown/queue)
                                          |
                                     Waker (auto-fallback)
                          HTTP API (RECOMMENDED)        CLI (LEGACY — 不推荐)
                          POST /chat                    hermes -z "..."
                          fixed session_id              --continue <session>

• Debounce (wake_debounce_seconds, default 3): coalesces a burst of same-reason events into one wake.
• Cooldown (wake_cooldown_seconds, default 30): suppresses repeat wakes for non-urgent reasons.
• Serial queue: WakeOrchestrator has a single worker thread — wakes to the same session are processed one at a time, preventing concurrent "split personality" responses.
• Timeout: wake_timeout (default 300s) — how long to wait for the agent to respond.

Every wake is logged to daemon.log:

[WAKE] trigger reason=AT_ME who=Alice where=group123 text='hello'
[WAKE] queued reason=AT_ME pending=1 debounce=1.0s primary=auto
[WAKE] delivered reason=AT_ME transport=http detail=POST /api/sessions/.../chat -> 200

Event routing

Trigger	Behavior
AT_ME, REPLY_TO_ME, DM_ME	Near-immediate wake (cooldown bypassed). Prompt includes who/where/text, image metadata, reply chain, and skill hints.
GROUP_TRIGGER	Debounced wake (group trigger-word match)
NEW_MESSAGE (not @)	Tracked, not woken; if unread longer than wake_new_message_idle_seconds -> NEW_MESSAGE_BACKLOG wake
NEW_FRIEND, NEW_REQUEST, BOT_BANNED, NEW_POKE, GROUP_ADMIN_CHANGE, NEW_GROUP_MEMBER, BOT_OFFLINE, ...	Debounced + cooldown-bounded wake

AT_ME detection supports all NapCat message formats: CQ code ([CQ:at,qq=...]), display name (@name (qq)), and message segments ({"type":"at","data":{"qq":"..."}}).

Two transports — HTTP recommended, CLI legacy

⚠️ Wake transport recommendation. The HTTP API server is the recommended transport for agent wake. The CLI one-shot backend is kept as a legacy fallback for environments where running the API server isn't viable — it is known to be less reliable (process-spawn latency, quoting hazards, new-session drift, no idempotency). When wake_primary=auto falls back to CLI because HTTP is unreachable, the wake may appear to succeed but never deliver the prompt (only HTTP returns a real delivered in daemon.log). Enable the HTTP API server first — only keep CLI for diagnostic --dry-run or as last-resort fallback. See AGENTS.md "Critical Lessons — hermes -z -" for the most common CLI failure mode.

Transport	Status	When it picks	Needs
HTTP API server	RECOMMENDED	primary=http or primary=auto when configured + reachable	wake_http_url + wake_http_key (bearer)
CLI one-shot	LEGACY / 不推荐	primary=cli (forced) or primary=auto only if HTTP is not configured/unreachable as a last-resort fallback	Agent CLI on PATH

wake_primary=auto tries HTTP first (if configured + reachable), else falls back to CLI.

Configuring for Hermes Agent

Option A: HTTP API Server (recommended)

The HTTP API server is the recommended wake transport. It provides:

• Session continuity: all wakes go to the same session (no "split personality")
• Idempotency: Idempotency-Key header prevents duplicate processing on retry
• Persistence: session history is stored in ~/.hermes/state.db
• Lower latency: no CLI process spawn overhead

Step 1: Enable Hermes API Server

Add to ~/.hermes/.env:

API_SERVER_ENABLED=true
API_SERVER_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32)   # generate a random key

Restart the gateway:

sudo systemctl restart hermes-gateway.service
# Verify API server is listening:
curl http://127.0.0.1:8642/health

Step 2: Create a dedicated QQ session

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8642/api/sessions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <API_SERVER_KEY>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"title": "napcat-qq"}'
# Response: {"session": {"id": "api_1784824379_59dd9495", ...}}

Step 3: Configure napcat-cli

napcat config set wake_enabled true
napcat config set wake_preset hermes
napcat config set wake_primary auto              # try HTTP first, CLI fallback
napcat config set wake_http_url http://127.0.0.1:8642
napcat config set wake_http_key <API_SERVER_KEY>
napcat config set wake_http_session_id <SESSION_ID>  # from Step 2
napcat config set wake_session napcat-qq         # CLI fallback session name
napcat config set wake_timeout 300               # seconds

Or edit ~/.napcat-data/daemon.json directly:

{
  "wake_enabled": true,
  "wake_preset": "hermes",
  "wake_primary": "auto",
  "wake_http_url": "http://127.0.0.1:8642",
  "wake_http_key": "<API_SERVER_KEY>",
  "wake_http_session_id": "<SESSION_ID>",
  "wake_timeout": 300.0,
  "wake_cli_command": "hermes --continue {session} -z \"$(cat {prompt_file})\" --yolo --pass-session-id"
}

Key env vars (also checked by Hermes preset, in priority order):

• NAPCAT_WAKE_HTTP_KEY — HTTP API bearer token
• HERMES_API_KEY — alias for the above

Option B: CLI one-shot — LEGACY / 不推荐

⚠️ Not recommended. Prefer Option A (HTTP). The CLI backend is kept for environments where running the API server isn't viable, but it has multiple known failure modes (process-spawn latency, quoting hazards, no idempotency, new-session drift). When wake_primary=auto falls back to CLI after an HTTP probe fails, the wake often appears to succeed but never delivers the prompt to the agent. Diagnose by running grep '\[WAKE\]' ~/.napcat-data/daemon.log — only the HTTP backend writes a delivered ... transport=http -> 200 line. For agents other than HTTP, configure Option A first; only fall back to CLI when there is no other choice.

If you don't want to run the API server, napcat-cli can invoke the Hermes CLI directly. The CLI backend writes the prompt to a temp file and passes it via $(cat {prompt_file}) to avoid shell quoting issues.

napcat config set wake_primary cli
napcat config set wake_session napcat-qq
napcat config set wake_cli_command 'hermes --continue {session} -z "$(cat {prompt_file})" --yolo --pass-session-id'

Limitations of CLI mode:

• Each invocation may create a new session if the name doesn't match an existing one
• No idempotency — retries may cause duplicate processing
• ~30-60s per invocation (CLI process startup + model inference)
• Large prompts with special characters require the $(cat {prompt_file}) pattern (not -z -, which Hermes treats as literal text "-")

Configuring for other agents

napcat-cli's wake system is agent-agnostic. Any HTTP endpoint or shell command works.

Custom HTTP endpoint

napcat config set wake_preset custom
napcat config set wake_primary http
napcat config set wake_http_url http://127.0.0.1:9000
napcat config set wake_http_key my-secret-key
# The HTTP backend POSTs to: {wake_http_url}/api/sessions/{session}/chat
# Body: {"input": "<prompt>"}
# Headers: Authorization: Bearer <key>, Idempotency-Key: <unique-id>
# If your endpoint uses a different path/body format, see wake_backend.py HttpWakeBackend

Custom CLI command — LEGACY / 不推荐

⚠️ Not recommended. The shell-command backend is kept for legacy / experimental setups only. Prefer Custom HTTP endpoint above — see the "Two transports — HTTP recommended, CLI legacy" note at the top of this section for why.

napcat config set wake_preset custom
napcat config set wake_primary cli
napcat config set wake_cli_command 'my-agent --prompt "$(cat {prompt_file})"'
# Placeholders: {prompt_file} (temp file path), {session}, {prompt} (inline, shell-quoted)

Disable wake entirely

napcat config set wake_preset none

Manual / debug

napcat wake                           # reason: manual, contextual default prompt
napcat wake --reason AT_ME --prompt "hello"
napcat wake --transport http          # recommended; --transport cli is legacy
napcat wake --dry-run                 # render the HTTP request + CLI command without executing
napcat wake test                      # per-transport configured + reachable probe
napcat wake sessions                  # list Hermes sessions (HTTP backend)
grep '\[WAKE\]' ~/.napcat-data/daemon.log    # see when/why/how wakes fired

The agent replies via napcat send / napcat reply (or the skills-fs write path) — see napcat_cli/data/SKILL.md.

Troubleshooting & verification

Verify the full wake chain end-to-end

1. Check daemon is running:

   ps aux | grep watch.py | grep -v grep
   tail -5 ~/.napcat-data/daemon.log   # should show recent events
   

2. Check Hermes API server is listening:

   curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8642/health
   # Expected: {"status": "ok", ...}
   

3. Test HTTP wake manually:

   curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8642/api/sessions/<SESSION_ID>/chat \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer <KEY>" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -H "Idempotency-Key: test-001" \
     -d '{"input": "ping"}'
   # Expected: {"message": {"content": "..."}}  with a response
   

4. Test CLI wake manually (legacy — prefer HTTP test above):

   ⚠️ CLI is legacy / not recommended. This reference is kept for diagnosing environments where the HTTP API server is genuinely unavailable. Only test CLI as a last resort — the HTTP test (step 3) is the one that matters.

   echo "hello" > /tmp/prompt.txt
   hermes --continue napcat-qq -z "$(cat /tmp/prompt.txt)" --yolo --pass-session-id
   # Expected: agent responds within 30-60s
   # NOTE: -z - does NOT read stdin. Always use -z "$(cat file)" or -z "literal".
   

5. Send a test @mention to the bot in a group, then check logs:

   grep '\[WAKE\]' ~/.napcat-data/daemon.log | tail -10
   # Should show: trigger -> queued -> delivered (or failed)
   

Common issues

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Bot doesn't respond to @mentions	Daemon not running, or crash killed event loop	ps aux | grep watch.py; check daemon.log for errors; restart daemon
[WAKE] delivered but no reply	Agent received prompt but didn't act	Check Hermes session via hermes sessions list; verify agent has napcat skills/tools
[WAKE] failed ... timeout	Agent took > wake_timeout seconds	Increase wake_timeout in daemon.json
[WAKE] failed ... session resolution failed	HTTP session ID not found	Run napcat wake sessions to list; recreate if needed
Multiple replies to one event ("split personality")	Concurrent wakes to same session	Set wake_primary=http (or ensure HTTP probe passes); the worker thread serializes wakes through HTTP's fixed session, but CLI one-shot can still create drift
hermes -z - sends literal "-"	-z takes literal string, not stdin	Use -z "$(cat {prompt_file})" template
Events stop after a bad message	Unhandled exception in event handler	Check daemon.log for process() ERROR; the handler now has try/except

Static analysis (prevents regressions)

The test suite includes tests/test_lint.py which runs pyflakes and py_compile on every file in napcat_cli/. This catches undefined names, syntax errors, and other issues that would crash the daemon at runtime.

python -m pytest tests/test_lint.py -v
# Should pass: test_no_undefined_names, test_all_modules_compile

Image & OCR

The wake prompt automatically includes image metadata when an image message is received:

• file_id — image file ID
• url — download URL
• sub_type — image type (0=normal, 1=sticker, 7=like)
• file_size — file size in bytes
• summary — PaddleOCR auto-recognized text (if available)
• reply_id — reply message ID (for tracking reply chains)

PaddleOCR is integrated. Image text is auto-recognized and included in the summary field. The agent can also use multimodal vision to read the image URL directly. NapCat's built-in OCR is unavailable — do not use /napcat/ocr.

Operation	CLI	skills-fs
Download image	napcat get_image <url>	/napcat/get_image
View message detail	napcat group <gid> get_message <mid>	/napcat/groups/:gid/:range/:mid/:content
Send image	napcat send group <gid> -f <path>	/napcat/groups/:gid/send/image

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Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
NAPCAT_API_URL	http://127.0.0.1:18801	NapCat HTTP endpoint
NAPCAT_TOKEN	—	API auth token
NAPCAT_DATA_DIR	~/.napcat-data	Data directory

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skills-fs Integration

The daemon runs an HTTP provider server (port 18820/18821) that skills-fs calls to read/write NapCat API endpoints through the virtual filesystem.

When skills_fs_enabled is true in daemon.json, the daemon spawns skills-fs automatically with the configured mountpoint and config file.

Distribution note: skills-fs is a compiled Go binary (git submodule pinned at cb13f37). It is not bundled in the pip/uv install of napcat-cli. If you need the FUSE mount (optional), build it separately:

git clone https://github.com/yandu-app/skills-fs
cd skills-fs && make build              # produces ./skills-fs
napcat config set skills_fs_binary /path/to/skills-fs
napcat daemon stop && napcat daemon start

Or place skills-fs on your PATH and the daemon will find it. This feature is optional — the CLI, daemon, and wake system work without it.

Manual start:

skills-fs fuse --config ~/.napcat-data/skills-fs.json \
  --mountpoint ~/.napcat-data/skills/napcat-cli --allow-other

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Development

napcat-cli/
├── napcat_cli/          # Installable package
│   ├── cli.py           # CLI entry point
│   ├── wake.py          # Wake command-template renderer
│   ├── wake_backend.py  # Generic HTTP/CLI wake transports + Waker (auto-fallback)
│   ├── wake_presets.py  # Hermes/custom/none presets -> Waker
│   ├── wake_orchestrator.py  # Debounce, cooldown, backlog sweep, contextual prompts
│   ├── setup_wizard.py  # Setup wizard
│   ├── daemon/          # Watch daemon, schemas
│   ├── lib/             # API, config, events
│   ├── tui/             # Textual TUI
│   └── data/            # SKILL.md, persona.md
├── pyproject.toml
├── tests/
├── skills-fs/           # Go submodule
└── tools/               # Dev utilities

python -m pytest tests/ -v
python -m build --wheel
uv build && uv publish

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License

MIT