Generate agent-friendly Cobra CLIs from OpenAPI, Swagger, protobuf, and GraphQL API specs.
Lathe turns declared API specifications into one inspectable CLI for humans and AI agents. The generated binary exposes the API as normal Cobra commands and as machine-readable contracts, so agents can discover a command, inspect its exact flags, auth, request body, HTTP path, and output shape, then execute it without guessing.
Hand-written API CLIs duplicate an existing contract and drift from it. Lathe keeps the specification and repo-local configuration as source of truth, then generates the command tree, runtime metadata, and Agent Skill together.
Use Lathe when you need to:
- Generate a CLI from Swagger 2.0, OpenAPI 3,
google.api.httpprotobuf APIs, or an explicitly curated GraphQL schema. - Keep a human-facing CLI and an agent-facing command catalog on the same contract.
- Pin Git inputs for reproducible generation or intentionally follow a declared local working tree.
- Add bounded CLI polish through overlays without hand-editing generated code.
| Surface | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Cobra command tree | Typed API commands with auth, body, pagination, streaming, polling, and structured output support. |
| Runtime catalog | search, commands --json, commands show, and commands schema expose exact operation and workflow contracts. |
| Agent Skill | A generated skills/<cli-name>/ guide that points agents back to the runtime catalog. |
| Optional bundled capabilities | Generated workflows and an embedded <cli> skill install command when enabled in cli.yaml. |
The runtime catalog is execution authority. Search results and generated Skill
text are discovery aids, not substitutes for commands show.
Download lathe from the latest release,
or build the current checkout with make build.
- Building a CLI from API specs: CLI usage
- Starting a CLI-first application:
lathe init - Inspecting a generated CLI safely: run
<cli> __lathe verify --json, then follow the catalog loop documented in CLI usage
- Architecture — generation/runtime boundaries, package ownership, and invariants.
- CLI usage — installation, configuration, generation, build, and operation.
- Machine contracts — versioned generated-code, catalog, verify, and error contracts.
- Workflow commands — declarative multi-operation commands and their limits.
- Application initializer — starter contract, pipeline, and cross-repository gate.
- Lathe Registry — reproducible community recipes maintained in a separate repository.
Lathe is a spec-to-agent-toolchain generator. It is not a generic scaffolder, runtime plugin loader, GUI/TUI, API gateway, or hand-written SDK replacement.
Apache License 2.0 © lathe-cli
Output generated into a downstream project is covered by the generated-output exception in LICENSE, not by this repository's license.