Command reference

This reference groups the public compass command surface by responsibility. Run compass <command> --help for the exact options in the installed version; this page explains how the families fit together and which outputs are stable for automation.

Global entry points

compass --help
compass --version
compass <command> --help

The shipped product executable is compass; there is no legacy command frontend or alias.

Build and analysis

init

Configure repository scope and perform the first structural build:

compass init [PATH]
  [--include PATH_OR_GLOB]
  [--exclude GLOB]
  [--program]
  [--store json|sqlite]
  [--inference-level low|medium|high|max]
  [--yes]
  [--force]

Includes and excludes are repeatable. Interactive mode previews the effective corpus before writing .compass/config.toml; scripts must pass --yes. Replacing an existing configuration requires --force. Init builds the structural graph by default; pass --program when the initial workspace also needs Program IR. The initial build publishes JSON and a SQLite query snapshot by default. Pass --store json when only the portable JSON artifact is wanted. The database lives below the output root at store/store.sqlite3; the snapshot contains only the small reference beside graph.json.

update

Make a saved current-tree graph match the project:

compass update [PATH]
  [--program]
  [--program-artifact PATH]
  [--out DIR]
  [--store json|sqlite]
  [--inference-level low|medium|high|max]
  [--no-program]
  [--no-cluster]
  [--force]
  [--no-viz]
  [--no-gitignore]
  [--exclude PATTERN]
  [--resolution N]
  [--exclude-hubs N]

Use for normal cold/incremental structural builds. The default publishes the structural graph only; pass --program when Program IR inspection or graph enrichment is needed. --no-program remains accepted as an explicit structural-only compatibility flag. Supply a verified offline SCIP index with repeatable --program-artifact (which also enables Program IR). For Java, fresh exact symbol evidence can disambiguate AST-proven call sites in graph.json; stale, unverified, conflicting, and non-call references are not projected. --no-program conflicts with --program-artifact. Graph storage defaults to sqlite; --store json opts out of the validated local store sidecar without replacing graph.json. JSON remains the portable authority, while the sidecar keeps large graphs queryable under bounded memory. Inference defaults to low and publishes exact relationships only. Use medium for source-backed inferred resolution, high to additionally retain explicitly qualified external references, or explicit max to retain all inferred relationships including deferred receivers.

extract

Expose the full build surface:

compass extract [PATH]
  [--program]
  [--program-artifact PATH]
  [--no-program]
  [--code-only]
  [--cargo]
  [--google-workspace]
  [--postgres DSN]
  [--backend NAME]
  [--model MODEL]
  [--mode deep]
  [--token-budget N]
  [--max-concurrency N]
  [--max-workers N]
  [--api-timeout SECONDS]
  [--allow-partial]
  [--dedup-llm]
  [--timing]
  [--out DIR]
  [--store json|sqlite]
  [--inference-level low|medium|high|max]
  [--no-cluster]
  [--force]
  [--no-viz]
  [--no-gitignore]
  [--exclude PATTERN]
  [--resolution N]
  [--exclude-hubs N]

Use --code-only for an explicit fully local structural profile; it limits structural node and edge extraction to code-classified files while retaining the scanned file inventory. Program IR is opt-in with --program; --program-artifact also enables it. --no-program is retained for callers that already use the structural-only spelling.

update, extract, and watch rebuilds may succeed with a warning that Compass published a partial graph. The warning reports exact omitted node, omitted edge, and identity-collision counts. The retained graph.json remains strictly valid and queryable; record examples and the exact summary are in graph.diagnostics. Document-level corruption, an unsafe inventory, no usable nodes, serialization failure, and atomic publication failure still return a nonzero exit.

watch

compass watch [PATH]
  [--debounce SECONDS]
  [--program]
  [--program-artifact PATH]
  [--no-program]
  [--store json|sqlite]
  [--inference-level low|medium|high|max]
  [--out DIR]
  [--no-cluster]
  [--no-viz]
  [--no-gitignore]
  [--exclude PATTERN]
  [--poll]

Watch builds omit Program IR by default. Pass `--program` or
`--program-artifact PATH` when the watcher should maintain the artifact.

Long-running adaptive filesystem watcher. Compass synchronizes once at startup, then coalesces native filesystem events with a 150 ms quiet window and a 750 ms maximum delay. --debounce changes the quiet window; the maximum becomes five times that value, capped at five seconds.

Only one build runs at a time. Changes received during a build queue one follow-up, transient build failures retry with bounded backoff, and an idle five-minute reconciliation catches missed events. Native watcher startup automatically falls back to content-aware polling; --poll forces that backend. A manual compass update remains the recovery oracle.

cluster-only

Recluster/analyze an existing graph or path:

compass cluster-only [PATH]
  [--graph PATH]
  [--no-viz]
  [--no-label]
  [--resolution N]
  [--exclude-hubs N]
  [--min-community-size=N]

label

Generate/update semantic community labels:

compass label [PATH]
  [--graph PATH]
  [--backend NAME]
  [--model NAME]
  [--missing-only]
  [--no-viz]
  [--resolution N]
  [--exclude-hubs N]
  [--max-concurrency N]
  [--batch-size N]
  [--min-community-size=N]
  [--timing]

Read and query

query

Natural-language graph discovery:

compass query "<question>"
  [--traverse]
  [--dfs]
  [--context VALUE]
  [--direction auto|incoming|outgoing|both]
  [--scope KIND:VALUE]
  [--format text|json]
  [--result-envelope]
  [--text-budget N]
  [--cursor TOKEN]
  [--budget N]
  [--page N]
  [--max-nodes N]
  [--max-edges N]
  [--graph PATH | --at REV]

Plain questions against a typed graph use bounded compass.query.discovery/1 discovery. Direction, repeatable OR scope, relationship context, and DFS compose within that contract. --result-envelope requires --format json and opt-in wraps the unchanged discovery result in compass.query.discovery-result/1 with a query-owned semanticResultDigest. Without this flag, the existing JSON shape remains unchanged. --traverse, --budget, or --page explicitly select legacy relevance traversal and cannot be mixed with discovery controls. CompassQL routing is unchanged. The default focused neighborhood is 64 nodes and 128 edges. Use --max-nodes 500 --max-edges 1000 when a query intentionally needs the full supported breadth; these remain hard ceilings rather than new defaults.

--context VALUE is a relationship filter for traversal evidence contexts such as call, import, or route. It is not a node, file, package, community, or subsystem selector. Use repeatable --scope KIND:VALUE for explicit OR scope over community, source, package, or node.

--text-budget bounds the discovery text projection. Its opaque cursor binds the contract version, normalized request/options, selected graph generation and digest, semantic-response digest, and next stable section/item. Fetch the next page with --cursor TOKEN and otherwise unchanged semantic inputs. The presentation-only --text-budget may change between pages. Pages contain whole deterministic entries; changed inputs fail instead of silently continuing a different result. JSON rejects text pagination controls. Legacy --budget and numeric --page retain their existing meaning only with legacy traversal.

Query seeds prefer source-backed declarations over unresolved external-symbol placeholders with the same callable label. Source-less placeholder nodes retain an explicit wiring=FILE:LOCATION site, and traversed relationships render their occurrence as at=FILE:LOCATION; neither is presented as a declaration location.

CompassQL:

compass query --cql QUERY
  [--param NAME=VALUE]
  [--format table|json|jsonl]
  [--graph PATH | --at REV]

compass query --cql --file PATH
  [--params-file PATH]
  [--output PATH]

compass query --cql --stdin
compass query --cql --repl

Limits:

--timeout-ms N
--max-rows N
--max-path-depth N
--max-expanded-relationships N
--max-memory-bytes N

--budget and --page apply only to natural-language query rendering. Page CompassQL rows explicitly with a stable ORDER BY plus SKIP and LIMIT, for example RETURN n.id ORDER BY n.id SKIP 100 LIMIT 100.

Canonical language contract: CompassQL.

path

compass path "<source>" "<target>" [--graph PATH | --at REV]

Renders a shortest known graph path while preserving relationship direction. If a route exists only by ignoring one or more edge directions, the typed response reports direction_mismatch; swap the operands to request that route.

explain

compass explain "<node>"
  [--budget N]
  [--page N]
  [--graph PATH | --at REV]

Shows one node and incoming/outgoing connections. An exact node ID resolves directly. When a label names multiple source-backed declarations, Compass lists the candidates and their source ranges and asks for the full node ID instead of silently selecting one. Connection lines include the stored relationship site. Connections and ambiguous candidates use the same bounded, deterministic pagination contract as natural-language queries instead of silently cutting off after the first group.

affected

compass affected "<node-or-label>"
  [--relation R]
  [--depth N]
  [--graph PATH]

Traverses incoming impact-relevant relations.

context

compass context explain|modify|debug|test TARGET
  [--graph PATH] [--program PATH] [--root PATH] [--memory PATH]
  [--engine default|json|store] [--format text|json]
  [--max-depth N] [--max-nodes N] [--max-edges N]
  [--max-paths N] [--max-candidates N] [--max-source-bytes N]
  [--max-knowledge-items N] [--max-response-bytes N]

Emits compass.task-context/1 after exact target resolution. It composes digest-verified source, exact calls, related tests, bounded impact, and identity-linked reflection memory. Ambiguous and fuzzy-only targets retain candidates but do not compose structural evidence.

tree

compass tree
  [--graph PATH]
  [--output HTML]
  [--root PATH]
  [--max-children N]
  [--top-k-edges N]
  [--label NAME]

Defaults:

• graph: compass-out/graph.json;
• output: compass-out/GRAPH_TREE.html;
• max children: 200;
• top outbound edges: 12.

After a successful interactive HTML export, Compass asks whether to open the page in the default browser. The answer defaults to no. With redirected input or output, in pipes, and in CI, Compass neither prompts nor launches a browser.

benchmark

compass benchmark [GRAPH_JSON]

Runs the native graph-query benchmark surface.

Versioned history and diffs

history

compass history enable [build-profile options]
compass history disable
compass history status [REV] [--format text|json]
compass history build REV [--all [--first-parent]] [build-profile options|--profile-from REV|REALIZATION] [--format text|json]
compass history rebuild REV [build-profile options] [--replace-corrupt] [--format text|json]
compass history list [REV] [--format text|json]
compass history show REALIZATION [--format text|json]
compass history prefer REV REALIZATION [--format text|json]
compass history export REV --format graph-json|compass-out --output PATH
compass history gc [--prune-non-preferred] [--yes] [--format text|json]

history build REV --all resolves REV once, then builds every locally reachable commit (including merged branches) in oldest-first topological order. Add --first-parent to limit the batch to the ref's first-parent lineage. The selected build profile is fixed for the whole batch. Validated preferred realizations with that profile are skipped, so rerunning the command resumes without rebuilding completed commits. Compass continues after individual commit failures, emits a complete final report, and exits 1 if any failed.

compass history build main --all --code-only
compass history build main --all --first-parent

Build-profile options include:

--code-only
--backend NAME
--model NAME
--exclude PATTERN
--cargo

diff

compass diff OLD NEW
  [--format text|json|html]
  [--output PATH]
  [--limit N]
  [--all]
  [--explain FINDING_ID]
  [--fingerprint SHA]

The default output is an actionable PR-review summary: likely breaks, behavior changes, affected callers/modules, and test evidence. Routine symbol churn is collapsed; --limit N changes the visible per-section budget, while --all expands routine findings and is exhaustive. --explain prints the evidence and reasoning for one finding. Diff requires comparable build profiles; rebuild the newer revision with --profile-from OLD when needed. --format html requires --output PATH and writes a self-contained interactive report containing the reviewer findings, unified/split source diffs, the exact Git patch fallback, and meaningful code-graph changes. --output is rejected for text and JSON; there is no alternate semantic-diff export command.

review

compass review --base REV --head REV
  [--repo OWNER/REPO] [--host HOST] [--pull-request-number N]
  [--fingerprint SHA256]
  [--format text|json|markdown|sarif]
  [--readiness]
  [--output PATH]
  [--max-findings N --max-output-bytes N]

compass review --pr NUMBER --repo OWNER/REPO [--host HOST]
  [--fingerprint SHA256]
  [--format text|json|markdown|sarif]
  [--output PATH]

review emits the canonical compass.pr_intelligence.report/1 result or one of its deterministic projections. Local mode resolves exact objects and never fetches. --repo, --host, and --pull-request-number bind a frozen CI identity without selecting the GitHub adapter. --pr selects bounded GitHub metadata/file pagination through gh and requires those full objects locally.

The command creates or reuses comparable immutable graph realizations and fails explicitly on profile mismatch. A clean candidate is analyzed at its deterministic synthetic merge; a conflict uses the PR-head realization and reports unavailable/indeterminate merge-dependent conclusions. --output writes atomically. Markdown-only budgets report exact projection omissions. Advisory risk and typed gate state do not change the CLI success code. With --readiness, JSON or Markdown emits the additive compass.pr-readiness/1 envelope referencing the unchanged report digest.

See PR Intelligence for schema, rubric, bounds, MCP, and gate semantics.

Service

serve

compass serve [GRAPH_PATH]
  [--graph PATH]
  [--transport stdio|http]
  [--host HOST]
  [--port PORT]
  [--api-key KEY]
  [--path PATH]
  [--json-response]
  [--stateless]
  [--session-timeout SECONDS]

Prefer stdio for a single local client. Avoid putting secret values directly in shell history; use the deployment's supported secret mechanism.

Export and visualization

export

Formats include:

html
json
workbench-json
callflow-html
obsidian
wiki
svg
graphml
cypher / graph database formats represented by current help
neo4j
falkordb

Each format has its own exact flags:

compass export --help
compass export callflow-html --help

Common inputs include --graph PATH, labels/report/sections, output directory, node/diagram limits, and database connection arguments.

html, json, and workbench-json accept repeatable graph views. Compass preserves their command-line order and puts them in one navigable workbench:

compass export html --code-graph --architecture-graph
compass export html --call-graph checkout --impact-graph checkout
compass export html --affected-graph checkout --relation calls --relation imports
compass export html --artifact-lens routes --artifact-lens data
compass export html --history-graph main~10..main

The equivalent generic syntax is repeatable --view with code, architecture, call:SYMBOL, impact:SYMBOL, affected:NODE, history:OLD..NEW, or artifact:LENS. Call, impact, and affected views share bounded --depth, --max-nodes, and --max-edges controls. --direction applies to call views, --include-heuristic to impact views, repeatable --relation to affected views, and --program PATH enriches call views with Program IR evidence. Unsupported, misspelled, and format-incompatible options fail instead of being ignored.

With no requested view, html contains a code-graph workbench and plain json retains the existing compass.viewer.graph/1 response. Any requested view makes json return compass.viewer.workbench/1; workbench-json always returns that contract. --community remains a graph-only JSON operation and cannot be combined with workbench views. --output PATH selects the HTML file.

For html and callflow-html, an interactive terminal asks before opening the generated page in the default browser. Non-interactive commands never prompt or launch a browser.

For database credentials, prefer supported environment variables over --password.

tree

Listed under read/query; produces a filesystem/symbol HTML visualization.

Graph diagnostics and merge operations

diagnose

The diagnose command groups integrity checks for saved graph artifacts. Its current public diagnostic is multigraph.

diagnose multigraph

compass diagnose multigraph
  [--graph PATH]
  [--json]
  [--max-examples N]
  [--directed | --undirected]
  [--extract-path PATH]

merge-graphs

compass merge-graphs graph1.json graph2.json [...]
  [--out merged.json]

Inputs must have compatible directed/multigraph semantics.

merge-driver

compass merge-driver BASE CURRENT OTHER

Low-level managed integration surface for graph merge behavior.

cache-check

compass cache-check FILES_FROM
  [--root DIR]
  [--mode M | --deep]
  [--prompt-file PATH]

Checks whether cached semantic results can be reused for a file list, root, mode, and prompt contract. Results are written visibly below the selected output root as cached.json (when hits exist) and uncached.txt.

merge-chunks

compass merge-chunks CHUNK_FILES... --out PATH

Validates and combines semantic chunk files into one output artifact.

merge-semantic

compass merge-semantic
  --cached PATH
  --new PATH
  --out PATH

These are pipeline helpers; use them when implementing or diagnosing semantic workflows.

Assistant and hook lifecycle

install

compass install
  [--project | --user]
  [--strict]
  [--platform P ... | --all]
  [--dry-run]
  [--require-all]
  [--format text|json]

Run compass install --help for the version's platform list. --strict requires a project-scoped Claude target. With no explicit platform, Compass detects agents and also installs the portable Agent Skills package. Dry-run output includes the complete skill and adapter path plan and performs read-only preflight checks.

uninstall

compass uninstall
  [--project]
  [--purge]
  [--platform P | P]

Review targets before --purge.

upgrade

compass upgrade

Reads the bounded compass.release/1 static manifest from the latest stable Compass release, downloads the exact immutable-tag archive for the current platform, verifies its declared size, SHA-256 digest, and reported version, then replaces the running executable. Release discovery does not use the rate-limited GitHub REST API. If the installed version is current or newer, the command exits successfully without changing it.

hook

compass hook [install|uninstall|status]

hook-check

compass hook-check

Managed integration probe invoked by older Compass-generated integration configuration. Current contextual integrations use hook-guard; people do not normally invoke this command directly.

hook-guard

compass hook-guard [search|read [--strict]|gemini]

Managed stdin/stdout adapter used by installed search, read, and Gemini integration hooks. Treat its input/output behavior as an internal integration contract unless a release explicitly documents it as a public automation API.

Providers and optional sources

provider

compass provider list
compass provider show NAME
compass provider add NAME
  --base-url URL
  --default-model MODEL
  --env-key KEY_VARIABLE_NAME
  [--pricing-input N]
  [--pricing-output N]
compass provider remove NAME

Built-in provider names cannot be overridden.

add

compass add URL
  [--author NAME]
  [--contributor NAME]
  [--dir ./raw]

Remote ingestion changes the filesystem and network state.

clone

compass clone GITHUB_URL
  [--branch BRANCH]
  [--out DIR]

Treat cloned content as untrusted.

Cross-project and collaboration

global

compass global add graph.json [--as REPO_TAG]
compass global remove REPO_TAG
compass global list
compass global path

prs

compass prs [NUMBER]
  [--triage]
  [--worktrees]
  [--conflicts]
  [--wrong-base]
  [--base BRANCH]
  [--repo OWNER/REPO]
  [--graph PATH]

GitHub/network credentials may be required.

Result memory and reflection

save-result

compass save-result
  --question Q
  (--answer A | --answer-file PATH)
  [--type T]
  [--nodes N1 N2 ...]
  [--outcome useful|dead_end|corrected]
  [--correction TEXT]
  [--memory-dir DIR]

reflect

compass reflect
  [--memory-dir DIR]
  [--out PATH]
  [--graph PATH]
  [--analysis PATH]
  [--labels PATH]
  [--half-life-days N]
  [--min-corroboration N]
  [--if-stale]

check-update

compass check-update PATH

Managed integration/update probe.

Input selection conventions

• Current read commands default to compass-out/graph.json.
• --graph PATH selects a graph JSON.
• Typed code-query commands (search, callers, callees, impact, explore, and node) use graph.json by default. Their --engine default|json|store option selects the engine; default uses the validated SQLite sidecar when the build published one and otherwise falls back to JSON, json always reads graph.json, and store requires the sidecar and fails closed when it is missing or corrupt.
• --at REV selects an exact historical graph for supported reads.
• --graph and --at are mutually exclusive.
• Build PATH defaults are command-specific; run help before scripting.
• COMPASS_OUT can change the default output root for several compatible command families; explicit --out is clearer in automation.

Store health and recovery

compass store status [OUTPUT] [--format text|json]
compass store validate [OUTPUT] [--format text|json]
compass store backup [OUTPUT] --output BACKUP_DIR [--format text|json]
compass store restore --from BACKUP_DIR --into OUTPUT [--format text|json]

status is read-only and reports graph, shared SQLite store, selector, schema, and digest state. validate requires a matching store/store.sqlite3, the current snapshot, and that snapshot's store.ref; a mismatch is an error, never an empty graph. backup creates a new digest-bound directory after checkpointing SQLite. restore validates that bundle and writes only to a new or empty destination. The commands currently operate on the local SQLite adapter. The redb adapter is library-only, and PostgreSQL/DynamoDB are future backends.

graph.json remains the complete portable authority. The default query engine uses the validated SQLite sidecar when present; use --engine json to force JSON or --engine store to require the sidecar. The explicit rebuild runbook is scripts/rebuild_compass_store.sh; the detailed operational workflow is in the Operations guide.

IDE and graph-inspection commands

compass capabilities --format json
compass export json [--community ID]
compass export workbench-json [VIEW ...]
compass export html [VIEW ...]
compass export callflow-json --output PATH
compass program call-graph (--symbol SYMBOL | --source FILE --byte BYTE)
  [--direction callers|callees|both] [--depth N] --format json
compass history timeline [--rev REV] [--limit N [--after CURSOR]] --format json
compass history change-counts REV [--parent REV] --format json
compass history diff OLD NEW [--root NAME] [--output PATH] --format jsonl
compass history export REV --format json [--community ID] [--node-limit N] --output PATH

history timeline is inspection-only and defaults to all commits reachable from local refs. --limit returns the newest bounded page, and --after uses the preceding page's opaque nextCursor. A cursor rejects local-ref changes instead of silently mixing snapshots. Responses include hasMore, nextCursor, and totalEntries once the final page establishes the exact count. history change-counts requires existing preferred realizations with the same complete build profile and never builds them. Its bounded structural counts exclude source-coordinate, clustering/layout, and anchor-derived edge identity churn while preserving topology and relationship multiplicity. history diff streams an exhaustive, deterministic record-level diff for selected immutable roots. It may lazily materialize a missing revision, requires identical complete build profiles and compatible graph engines, refuses to overwrite --output, and bounds stdout for safety. This is distinct from the ranked compass diff semantic-review report. Guided writers accept --events jsonl; stdout then contains compass.ide.progress/1 events and human diagnostics move to stderr.

json is the canonical versioned graph-presentation export. viewer-json remains accepted as a deprecated compatibility alias.

Output and exit conventions

Human text goes to stdout on success. Diagnostics go to stderr.

History:

• success and read-only no-store status/list operations: exit 0;
• usage: exit 2;
• Git/provider/validation/corruption/storage: exit 1.

CompassQL:

• source/options/compile: exit 2;
• graph loading: exit 3;
• execution/limit/cancellation/output: exit 4.

Other command families preserve documented compatibility-specific codes. Test the exact command boundary your automation uses.

Related pages

• Configuration reference
• Output reference
• CompassQL
• Versioned history guide

Next step: run compass <command> --help for the command you will automate, then pin its input, structured output, and exit expectations in an integration test.