dewey

Terminal-native access to the Dewey document backend API. Upload documents, run hybrid search, stream cited research answers — all from the command line.

export DEWEY_API_KEY=dwy_live_…

# One-time: save your project ID (visible in the dashboard URL)
dewey config set project_id <your-project-id>

dewey collections create research-papers
dewey upload ./papers/*.pdf -c research-papers --watch
dewey research research-papers "what are the key findings?" --depth deep

Install

macOS / Linux

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meetdewey/dewey-cli/main/install.sh | sh

The script detects your OS and arch, downloads the correct binary, verifies the SHA-256 checksum, and installs to ~/.local/bin (no sudo required). Override with INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/bin sh install.sh.

Or download a specific release directly — archives are named dewey_<version>_<os>_<arch>.tar.gz:

# Example: v0.1.0 on macOS arm64
curl -Lo dewey.tar.gz \
  https://github.com/meetdewey/dewey-cli/releases/download/v0.1.0/dewey_0.1.0_darwin_arm64.tar.gz
tar -xzf dewey.tar.gz && mv dewey /usr/local/bin/

Windows

Download dewey_<version>_windows_amd64.zip from Releases and extract dewey.exe to a directory in your PATH.

Authentication

All commands require a project API key:

export DEWEY_API_KEY=dwy_live_…

The --api-key flag is also accepted (prefer the env var). Run dewey doctor to validate your setup.

Commands

dewey upload <files...>         Upload files (--watch for live status)
dewey query  <collection> <q>   Hybrid retrieval
dewey scan   <collection> <q>   Section-summary scan
dewey research <col> <question> Streaming cited answer
dewey watch  [collection]       Tail document-status events
dewey doctor                    Validate environment

dewey collections list|get|create|update|delete|stats
dewey docs        list|get|markdown|sections|chunks|images|delete|wait
dewey duplicates  detect|list|resolve|dismiss
dewey contradictions detect|list|apply|dismiss
dewey claims      list|get
dewey agents      invoke
dewey provider-keys list|set|delete
dewey config      get|set|reset|path
dewey version

Every command supports --json for machine-readable output. See dewey <command> --help for full flag details.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/meetdewey/dewey-cli.git
cd dewey-cli
go build -trimpath -o dewey ./cmd/dewey

Requires Go 1.23+.

Layout

cmd/dewey/main.go             entrypoint
internal/
  api/                        hand-written HTTP client
  cmd/                        cobra subcommands
  config/                     ~/.dewey/config.toml + state.toml
  output/                     human + JSON renderers
  version/                    ldflags-injected build metadata

Output conventions

• Diagnostic noise (status, progress bars) → stderr
• Data (query results, research answers, JSON) → stdout
• --json is a stable contract across minor versions; human output is allowed to be lossy

Configuration

~/.dewey/config.toml:

default_collection = "research-papers"
project_id = "…"   # used by `dewey collections create`, `dewey agents invoke`
org_id     = "…"   # used by `dewey agents invoke`
output = "human"   # "human" | "json"
color  = "auto"    # "auto" | "always" | "never"

Override the API endpoint (staging, self-hosted, local dev):

export DEWEY_BASE_URL=http://localhost:3000/v1