Command line

Command line

Commands

Command	Purpose
kelpy	Start Kelpy in the foreground, with the Web UI. The first run installs it: see Installation and first run
kelpy status	Show whether Kelpy is running, with its PID, port, address and access code
kelpy open	Open the Web UI in the browser, already signed in
kelpy stop	Stop the Kelpy running for this home, for example from another terminal
kelpy provider	Choose how Kelpy connects to AI: see below
kelpy cleanup	Remove Kelpy from this computer: see below
kelpy update	Install the latest version of Kelpy: see below
kelpy --version	Show the version

kelpy tui, kelpy config and kelpy chat are planned and not available yet.

Options

Option	Effect
--home <PATH>	Use this folder as the Kelpy home, creating it if needed; nothing is installed. Also KELPY_HOME
--yes, -y	Accept every first-run default without asking
--shutdown-after <DURATION>	Stop after this time, such as 30m, 2h or 1h30m
--shutdown-idle <DURATION>	Stop after this long without activity; work in progress always counts as activity

To keep Kelpy available on a schedule, start it from cron or Task Scheduler with a limit:

kelpy --home /root/Kelpy --shutdown-idle 30m

kelpy provider

Without options, kelpy provider asks the same questions as the Web UI: how Kelpy connects to AI, then the service, the key or the sign-in, and the model, chosen from the list the service gives. See Connecting to AI.

With --service, it sets the provider without questions:

Option	Meaning
--service <ID>	The service: chatgpt, gemini, groq, openrouter, mistral, anthropic, openai, openai-compatible, ollama or local-server
--model <NAME>	The model, such as claude-opus-5-5
--base-url <URL>	The API address, for services without one of their own
--key-from <VARIABLE>	The environment variable holding the API key. Keys are never given on the command line

kelpy provider --service groq --model openai/gpt-oss-120b --key-from GROQ_API_KEY

For signing in with ChatGPT as an agent:

Option	Meaning
--export-agent <FILE>	Write this Kelpy's agent registration to a file, for another Kelpy. It holds no secrets
--import-agent <FILE>	Use another Kelpy's registration: signing in as an agent then asks only for approval

kelpy update

Installs the latest release in place of the executable in the home, after checking it: the release's checksums must carry the signature of Kelpy's release key, and the download must match its checksum. It asks first; --yes installs without asking. Stop Kelpy before updating.

At every start Kelpy also checks for a new release, for at most 3 seconds, and offers to install it; after the update, the new version starts in its place. A declined version is not offered again, only mentioned in one line. Without a terminal (cloud-init, scripts) Kelpy only prints that line. To turn the check off, in config.toml:

[updates]
check = false

kelpy cleanup

Removes Kelpy's files from the home (the executable, config.toml, data/, memory/, workspace/, logs/), the PATH entry and the record of the home in your user profile. Conversations, memory and workspace files are deleted for good. Other files in the folder are kept. It lists what it removes and asks first; --yes confirms in scripts. It refuses while Kelpy is running: run kelpy stop first.