Kerno CLI

The Kerno CLI manages the Kerno agent on your machine and sets up MCP for your coding agent.

Install

The CLI is published as @kerno/cli on npm.

npm install -g @kerno/cli

Or run without installing.

npx @kerno/cli <command>

Requires Node.js 18 or higher. For the full setup walkthrough, see Set up Kerno MCP.

Commands

Command	Description
kerno mcp	Show MCP server configuration for Claude Code and Cursor. Starts the agent if it is not already running.
kerno start	Start the Kerno agent.
kerno stop	Stop the Kerno agent.
kerno status	Show the current system status.
kerno doctor	Diagnose orphan agents and inconsistent state files. Use --clean to apply fixes.
kerno logs	Stream workspace logs from the running agent. Use -n <count> to set the number of log lines (default 40).
kerno export-logs	Export Kerno agent logs (workspace + terminal output) to a zip file. Requires -o <path> for the destination.
kerno login	Log in to Kerno via your browser.
kerno logout	Log out from Kerno.
kerno uninstall	Stop the agent and remove installed binaries.

Run kerno with no arguments to launch the interactive shell.

Global options

Option	Description
-w, --workspace <path>	Workspace path. Defaults to the current directory.
-v, --verbose	Show Kerno diagnostic logs.
--force-update	Force re-download of the agent. Applies to start and mcp.
-V, --version	Show CLI version.
-h, --help	Show help.

Examples

Start the agent in your project root.

cd /path/to/your/project
kerno start

Print MCP config and let the CLI start the agent if needed.

kerno mcp

Fix orphan agent processes.

kerno doctor --clean

Stream the most recent 100 log lines.

kerno logs -n 100

Export logs for support.

kerno export-logs -o ./kerno-logs.zip