baud-cli

baud-cli provides the baud command: a small serial CLI designed for coding agents and repeatable embedded-hardware debugging. It turns the recurring one-off pyserial scripts into guarded YAML workflows with deterministic exit codes, JSON/JSONL output, raw-byte evidence, and automatically archived logs.

Install

baud-cli requires Python 3.10 or newer. The runtime dependencies are pyserial and PyYAML; uv is the recommended installer but is not a runtime requirement.

Install the published command on Windows, macOS, or Linux:

uv tool install baud-cli
baud --help

Install from a checkout while developing:

uv tool install --editable .
baud --help

For development:

uv sync --extra dev
uv run baud --help

Install the Agent Skill from the public repository with the cross-agent skills CLI:

npx skills add Nitmi/baud-cli --skill baud

OpenClaw users can install the published ClawHub skill:

openclaw skills install @nitmi/baud

For development from this checkout, install or verify the bundled Skill directly:

uv tool install --editable .
uv tool update-shell
uv run python tools/install_skill.py
uv run python tools/install_skill.py --check --json

The canonical Skill source remains under skills/baud; the installer copies that source to ~/.agents/skills/baud. It refuses to overwrite a different installed copy unless --force is explicitly supplied.

Platform support

The serial transport uses pyserial and has no OS-specific code. CI is configured for Python 3.10 and 3.13 on Windows, macOS, and Linux, including a real pyserial loop:// round trip through the CLI.

Platform	Typical port	Notes
Windows	COM5	USB serial drivers provide the COM port.
macOS	/dev/cu.usbserial-* or /dev/cu.usbmodem*	Prefer /dev/cu.* for outbound CLI sessions.
Linux	/dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyACM0	The user needs permission to open the device.

On Linux, add the user to the serial-device group used by the distribution, commonly dialout or uucp, then start a new login session. USB drivers, device permissions, and DTR/RTS reset wiring remain platform and hardware concerns even though the CLI itself is portable.

Core commands

The examples use a Windows port name; replace COM14 with the connected /dev/cu.* or /dev/tty* device on macOS or Linux.

uv run baud list --json
uv run baud monitor --port COM14 --duration 30 --json
uv run baud send --port COM14 status --wait 2 --require-response --json
uv run baud probe --port COM14 --commands help status ? --endings crlf lf --json
uv run baud run examples/wash_test.yaml --json

probe follows the diagnostic pattern seen in real agent sessions: listen first, preserve raw bytes, then try harmless commands with multiple line endings. It distinguishes a responsive device from a device that transmits a startup banner but never processes PC-to-device commands.

Guarded hardware actions

A dangerous action must name successful earlier steps. The CLI refuses to load a dangerous step with no guards, and it never transmits the action if a required assertion failed:

- id: sensor_snapshot
  send: sensor_i2c_status
  wait: 3
  expect:
    contains: ["target=164"]

- id: start_wash
  send: wash_start
  dangerous: true
  requires: [sensor_snapshot]

The complete guarded example is in examples/wash_test.yaml.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Workflow or diagnostic command completed
2	Step or guard failed
3	Assertion failed
4	Port missing, busy, disconnected, or unreadable
5	Timeout
6	Encoding or protocol error
7	Workflow configuration error

Every active serial command closes the port through a context manager, even after an assertion or I/O failure. By default, human-readable .log and machine-readable .jsonl artifacts are written under logs/; use --no-log only for disposable checks.