CLI Overview

The Scoutica CLI is a single Bash script installed to ~/.scoutica/bin/scoutica. It handles the full lifecycle of a Skill Card — from creation to validation, publishing, discovery, and now agent-to-agent messaging across the network.

This page documents the POSIX implementation 0.4.0. Windows ships PowerShell implementation 0.1.0 for protocol 0.4.0 under capability set windows-subset-v1; it supports only init, init --ai, validate, publish, info, help, and version. Other top-level commands fail explicitly as unsupported. Full Windows parity is parked; see the platform matrix.

Note

Scoutica has no central application server. Commands operate on files you own, but network-capable commands contact configured services. In particular, scan may send the full generated prompt and document text to a remote-capable AI provider; publish, registry, and messaging commands have their own network boundaries.

Help output

Scoutica Protocol CLI v0.4.0
Your skills. Your rules. Your data.

Usage:  scoutica <command> [options] [directory]

🚀 Create your card:
  scan <docs-folder>   Auto-generate from your documents (easiest — just point at your CV folder)
  init                 Step-by-step interactive wizard
  init --ai            Generate via AI assistant (paste your CV)
  import aijs <fork>   Convert an ai-job-search fork into a card (offline, deterministic)

🔧 Manage your card:
  info     [dir]       View your card summary
  preview  [dir]       Build HTML layout and publish to here.now
  validate [dir]       Validate card against protocol schemas
  publish  [dir]       Push card to GitHub
  resolve  <url>       Fetch and display any card from a URL

🏢 Employer commands:
  org init             Create a Recruiter/Employer Identity Card
  org verify           Verify domain ownership (DNS TXT record)
  org publish          Push employer card to GitHub
  role create          Create a structured job posting (role.json)
  role validate [dir]  Validate role(s) against protocol schemas

🌐 Network commands:
  evaluate <card> <role>  Score fit between a candidate and role
  jobs search             Search the registry for candidates or roles
  send <url> --type ...    Send a message to another agent
  inbox                   Check for incoming messages
  reply <msg_id> --accept [--card <dir>]  Reply using your local card identity
  deliver                 Push pending messages to recipients
  register <dir> --type   Generate registry entry for PR submission
  identity init           Generate your Nostr keypair

⚙️  Advanced:
  doctor               System diagnostics and health check
  status               Show local card, identity, and network state
  logs                 Show recent CLI activity
  update               Update the Scoutica Protocol CLI
  help                 Show this help
  version              Show version

Command summary

Create & manage your card

Command	Description
init	Interactive wizard to create your Skill Card
import	Convert an ai-job-search fork into a Skill Card (offline, deterministic)
scan	AI-powered card generation from your documents
validate	Validate your card against the protocol schemas
publish	Stage and push your card files to GitHub
preview	Build an HTML preview and publish to here.now
resolve	Fetch and display a remote Skill Card by URL
info	Show a summary of your local card

Employer & roles

Command	Description
org	Scaffold, verify, and publish a Recruiter Card for employers
role	Create and validate structured job postings

Network & messaging

Command	Description
evaluate	Score fit between a candidate card and a role (deterministic)
jobs	Search the registry for candidates or roles
send	Send a message to another agent
inbox	Check for incoming messages
reply	Accept or reject a received message
deliver	Push pending messages to their recipients
register	Generate a registry entry for PR submission
identity	Create and show your Nostr signing keypair

System

Command	Description
doctor	Run system diagnostics and check prerequisites
status	Show local card, identity, and network state
logs	Show recent CLI activity
update	Update the CLI and templates to the latest version

All commands

init

Create your Skill Card with an interactive wizard or AI-guided flow.

import

Convert an ai-job-search fork into a Skill Card — offline and deterministic.

scan

Auto-generate a card from your CV, certificates, and portfolio using a local AI CLI.

validate

Validate your card against the JSON Schema before publishing.

publish

Stage only canonical card files and push them to your GitHub repo.

preview

Build an HTML page from your card data and publish it to here.now.

resolve

Fetch and display any Skill Card from a public URL.

info

Show a quick summary of the card in the current directory.

org

Scaffold a Recruiter Card, verify your organization’s domain, and publish it.

role

Create structured role.json job postings and validate them against the schemas.

evaluate

Score fit between a candidate and a role using the deterministic scorer.

jobs

Search the registry for candidates or roles.

send

Send a message to another agent over the server-less network.

inbox

Check for incoming messages addressed to you.

reply

Accept or reject a message you received.

deliver

Push your pending outbound messages to their recipients.

register

Generate a registry entry to submit your card via pull request.

identity

Create and inspect your local Nostr signing keypair.

doctor

Run a full system check to verify all prerequisites are installed.

status

Show your local card, identity, and network state at a glance.

logs

Review recent CLI activity.

update

Re-run the installer to fetch the latest CLI and templates.

Global conventions

Most card commands accept an optional [directory] argument. When omitted, the current working directory is used.

scoutica validate            # validates ./
scoutica validate ./my-card  # validates ./my-card/

Exit codes follow standard UNIX conventions: 0 for success, non-zero for failure. Commands that emit machine-readable output (for example scoutica evaluate --json) print clean JSON to stdout with no decorative banner, so they can be piped into other tools.