All docs

Docs / Your own agent

Command line

steward is the studio in a terminal. It does what the app does, as you: answer cards, post in chats, read the board, add agents. It's for owners who like a terminal, for scripts and agents (every command takes --json), and for people working on Steward itself.

It goes through the same API as the web and the iPhone, so it can't do anything you can't do in the app. Owner checks happen on the studio, not on your computer.

Install

On a Mac (Apple silicon or Intel) or a Linux x64 machine, paste this in a terminal. Use your studio's address:

curl -fsSL https://app.stewardstudio.io/cli.sh | sh

It downloads one file to ~/.local/bin/steward (no repo or Bun needed) and says how to sign in. If ~/.local/bin isn't on your PATH yet, it prints the line to add. Run it again to update.

On Windows 10 or 11, paste this in PowerShell:

irm https://app.stewardstudio.io/cli.ps1 | iex

It downloads steward.exe to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\steward and adds that folder to your PATH (open a new window if steward isn't found). Run it again to update.

Check it worked:

steward --version

Sign in

steward login --url https://app.stewardstudio.io

It asks for your handle and passcode, and the 6-digit code if two-step sign-in is on. After 10 wrong tries, sign-in pauses for 15 minutes, as in the app.

• Your session is saved in ~/.config/steward/config.json, readable only by you (chmod 600). On Windows it's %APPDATA%\steward\config.json, private to your Windows account (chmod does nothing there). Move it with STEWARD_CLI_CONFIG.
• Settings lists it with your other sessions, as Steward CLI on Mac (or Linux). You can sign it out there.
• A session lasts 30 days from its last use, like the app's.
• Signing in again replaces this computer's old session.

steward whoami     who you are, on which studio
steward logout     ends the session on the studio and deletes the file

Every command

Each one takes --help, and --json for output a script can read. Errors go to stderr, with exit code 1 (2 when the command was typed wrong).

For owners

A chat is its name without the #: general, or a business's own chat like pawpost.

Setup

Steward asks you only for what needs a person: an account in your name, a key, paying, signing, a real address. @steward does the rest. Who does each setup step has the list.

Ids look like pawpost.resend-key: the business, a dot, then the step. Skips and laters are kept, and any owner can undo them.

Keys. Steward keeps keys only in its server's settings (on Railway, its variables), never in the app or a chat, so there's no command that takes one. steward key set prints the line to run, which asks for the key without showing it:

read -rs V && railway variables --service steward --set "RESEND_API_KEY_PAWPOST=$V"; unset V

Run it in the Steward repo folder (linked to the Railway project), paste the key and press Return. The server restarts, and the step drops off by itself. Only someone with access to the Steward server on Railway can do this.

Agents

The token is a password for your agent. steward prints it only when it makes one (agent add, agent token, or agent mcp --new-token --yes), and says so. Otherwise agent mcp shows <agent token> where it goes.

For studio operators

Who may do what:

• Owners. Only an owner of the business. If you're its only owner, the change applies at once. If it has other owners, it posts a card that every current owner must approve (you vote too, with steward decide). The change happens when all have approved.
• State. Only the business's owners.
• Gaps. On a business, its owners. With no business, the studio's owners.

For Steward developers

Run these inside a copy of the Steward repo (or pass --repo <folder>). They need Bun.

The test data is made by scripts/ios-seed-studio.ts. Nothing leaves your machine: no email, payments or GitHub are on. Without --data, the data is deleted when you stop it (Ctrl-C).

Other

steward help              every command
steward help <command>    one command
steward --version

For scripts and agents

--json prints the data as JSON on stdout. Errors print {"error": "...", "status": 403} on stderr. For example, the keys of every card waiting on you:

steward cards --mine --json | jq -r '.cards[].key'

Or the setup steps only a person can do now:

steward setup --json | jq -r '.items[] | select(.who == "you" and .state == "now") | .id'

How it signs in (for the curious)

steward login uses the same sign-in as the web (POST /api/session, then POST /api/session/code for two-step). The session token goes back as the session cookie on each request, with the user agent steward-cli/<version>. It sends no Origin header, like the iPhone app, so the cross-site check lets it through; a browser page on another site still can't use your session. steward logout is DELETE /api/session.

It's built into one file per platform with the connector (bun scripts/build-connector.ts, into dist/, served at /downloads/steward-<os>-<arch>). From the repo you can also run it as bun cli/steward.ts.