CLI reference
The tares package installs four entry points.
| command | purpose |
|---|---|
tares up | start the daemon and console |
tares mcp | run the MCP server (for remote agents) |
tares status | readiness checklist and the next step |
taresd | the daemon, configured by environment only |
tares-mcp | the stdio MCP proxy (spawned by an agent client) |
tares up
Starts taresd with a persistent data home and prints the console URL.
tares up [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--data-dir DIR] [--open] [--auth[=TOKEN]]| flag | default | description |
|---|---|---|
--host | 127.0.0.1 | bind address; 0.0.0.0 to expose on the network |
--port | 8787 | bind port |
--data-dir | ~/.tares | directory for the DuckDB file and catalog |
--open | off | open the console in a browser |
--auth[=TOKEN] | off | require a login. Bare --auth generates and persists a root token (printed as a …/?token=… login URL each launch); --auth=TOKEN uses your own. Omit for an open instance. See Authentication. |
tares up sets TARES_DB and TARES_CATALOG under --data-dir unless they are already set
in the environment. --auth exports TARES_AUTH_TOKEN, so setting that variable is equivalent.
tares mcp
Runs the MCP server, a network endpoint for remote agents (streamable-http is the default).
For a client that spawns the server itself over stdio, use tares-mcp instead.
tares mcp [--transport {stdio,sse,streamable-http}] [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--taresd URL]| flag | default | description |
|---|---|---|
--transport | streamable-http | stdio, sse, or streamable-http |
--host | 127.0.0.1 | bind address (HTTP transports) |
--port | 8788 | bind port (HTTP transports) |
--taresd | http://127.0.0.1:8787 | the daemon URL to proxy to |
tares mcp --transport streamable-http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8788 --taresd http://localhost:8787
# serves http://<host>:8788/mcptares status
tares status [--taresd URL] [--data-dir DIR] [--json]Asks the running daemon (default http://127.0.0.1:8787, or TARESD_URL) and prints one line per
check: daemon, auth, sources configured and receiving, views, triggers, Tares agents and whether an
Anthropic key is set, the MCP endpoint, which agent clients on this machine have Tares registered
(Claude Code, Cursor, Codex; read-only), Slack. The last line is the one thing to do next.
--json prints the same as a stable object. Exit code 1 when nothing answers. When auth is on, the
root token is read from --data-dir (or TARES_AUTH_TOKEN).
taresd
The daemon itself, with no CLI flags, configured entirely by environment variables (see
Configuration). tares up is a thin wrapper over this.
TARES_DB=/data/tares.duckdb TARES_HOST=0.0.0.0 TARES_PORT=8787 taresdtares-mcp
The stdio MCP proxy, the entry point an agent client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop) spawns. It reads:
| variable | default | description |
|---|---|---|
TARESD_URL | http://127.0.0.1:8787 | the daemon to proxy to |
TARES_AUTH_TOKEN | unset | bearer token, if the daemon requires one |
TARES_MCP_TRANSPORT | stdio | stdio, sse, or streamable-http |
See Connecting agents for client configuration.