ttal-cli

TTAL CLI - Agent Infrastructure

A command-line tool for managing agents, projects, workers, PRs, messaging, and voice — the single interface for agent operations in tmux sessions.

Features

• Project Management: Add, list, and archive projects
• Agent Management: Configure agents with role, voice, and status tracking
• Worker Management: Spawn and close Claude Code workers in isolated sessions
• PR Management: Create, modify, merge (squash), and comment on Forgejo PRs — context auto-resolved from worker session
• Messaging: Bidirectional agent ↔ human (Telegram) and agent ↔ agent (tmux) communication via ttal send
• Today Focus: Manage daily task focus list via taskwarrior's scheduled date
• Task Routing: Route tasks to agents by name or role with ttal task route --to <agent>, or spawn workers with ttal task execute
• Task Utilities: Search tasks and export rich prompts with inlined markdown context
• Voice: Text-to-speech using per-agent Kokoro voices on Apple Silicon
• Daemon: Communication hub — Telegram polling, message delivery, worker cleanup (launchd)

Installation

Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew tap tta-lab/ttal
brew install ttal

From source

go install github.com/tta-lab/ttal-cli@latest

With voice dictation (macOS only)

git clone https://github.com/tta-lab/ttal-cli.git
cd ttal-cli
make install-dictate

Recommended: Clone + /setup skill

The easiest way to get started — clone this repo, open in Claude Code, and run /setup:

git clone https://github.com/tta-lab/ttal-cli.git && cd ttal-cli
# Open in Claude Code, then: /setup

The /setup skill installs ttal, runs ttal onboard, and handles Telegram config. Templates are in templates/ — no network clone needed.

Post-install setup

# Set up taskwarrior hook (routes task events to agents)
ttal worker install

# Set up daemon (Telegram integration + worker cleanup, macOS)
ttal daemon install

To remove:

ttal worker uninstall
ttal daemon uninstall

Development

Quick Start

# Format code
make fmt

# Generate JSON Schema from config structs
make schema

# Run tests
make test

# Build binary
make build

# Run all checks (CI equivalent)
make ci

Pre-commit Hooks

Install lefthook to automatically run checks before each commit:

lefthook install

The pre-commit hook runs fmt, vet, and lint in parallel. Tests are CI-only.

Code Quality

This project uses:

• gofmt - Code formatting
• golangci-lint - Comprehensive linting
• go vet - Static analysis

Run linting:

make lint

CI/CD

Workflows

PR Workflow (.github/workflows/pr.yaml)

• Runs on all pull requests
• Checks formatting, vet, linting
• Verifies generated JSON Schema is up-to-date
• Runs tests and builds binary

CI Workflow (.github/workflows/ci.yaml)

• Runs on push to main
• Full build and lint checks
• Ensures main branch stays healthy

Release Workflow (.github/workflows/release.yaml)

• Triggers on version tags (e.g., v1.0.0)
• Uses GoReleaser to build binaries for Linux/macOS (amd64, arm64)
• Creates GitHub release with archives and checksums
• Auto-pushes Homebrew formula to tta-lab/homebrew-ttal tap

Creating a Release

# Tag a new version
git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

# GoReleaser builds binaries, creates release, and updates Homebrew formula
# Users upgrade via: brew upgrade ttal

Usage

Project Commands

Project aliases support hierarchical matching for taskwarrior integration. When a task has project:ttal.daemon.watcher, ttal tries matching in order: ttal.daemon.watcher → ttal.daemon → ttal. This lets ttal act as a catch-all for all sub-projects.

# Add a project
ttal project add --alias=clawd --name='TTAL Core' --path=/Users/neil/clawd

# List all projects
ttal project list

# Modify project fields
ttal project modify clawd name:'New Project Name'
ttal project modify clawd path:/new/path
# Modify multiple fields at once
ttal project modify clawd name:'New Name' path:/new/path

# Archive a project
ttal project archive old-project

# Unarchive a project
ttal project unarchive old-project

Agent Commands

# Add an agent
ttal agent add yuki --voice af_heart --emoji 🦅 --role designer

# List all agents
ttal agent list

# Get agent info
ttal agent info yuki

# Modify agent metadata
ttal agent modify yuki voice:af_heart
ttal agent modify yuki emoji:🐱 description:'Task orchestration'
ttal agent modify yuki role:researcher

Worker Commands

Worker commands manage Claude Code instances running in isolated tmux sessions, tracked via taskwarrior. These commands do not require the ttal database.

# List active workers
ttal worker list

# Spawn a worker for a task
ttal task execute <uuid>

# Close a worker (smart mode - auto-cleanup if PR merged + clean worktree)
ttal worker close <session-name>

# Force close (dump state and cleanup regardless of PR status)
ttal worker close <session-name> --force

Close Exit Codes

Worker Setup

ttal worker install installs two taskwarrior hooks (on-add-ttal and on-modify-ttal). Worker cleanup after PR merge is handled by the daemon (see Daemon Setup below).

# Install taskwarrior hooks
ttal worker install

# Remove taskwarrior hooks
ttal worker uninstall

# View hook logs
tail -f ~/.task/hooks.log

Task Lifecycle

Tasks go through hook-driven stages:

1. on-add: Auto-enrichment — When a task is created, the on-add hook resolves project_path and generates a branch name inline using project.ResolveProjectPath() and enrichment.GenerateBranch(). No subprocess is forked.

2. on-modify (complete): Auto-cleanup — When a task is completed, the hook validates the completion (PR merge check). Workers are spawned explicitly via ttal task execute, not by task start.

3. Daemon cleanup — After a PR is merged, ttal pr merge drops a cleanup request file. The daemon picks it up and handles: close tmux session → remove worktree → mark task done. If the PR is not merged or the worktree is dirty, ErrNeedsDecision is returned, causing the CLI to exit with code 1 for manual handling.

# Example flow:
task add "Fix auth timeout in login API"  # on-add: resolves project_path/branch inline
ttal task execute <uuid>                  # spawns worker/fix-auth-timeout
ttal pr merge                             # from worker: merges PR + triggers daemon cleanup

Today Commands

Manage your daily focus list. Tasks are filtered by taskwarrior's scheduled date. These commands do not require the ttal database.

# List today's focus tasks (scheduled on or before today, sorted by urgency)
ttal today list

# Show tasks completed today
ttal today completed

# Add tasks to today's focus (accepts 8-char UUID prefix or full UUID)
ttal today add <uuid> [uuid...]

# Remove tasks from today's focus
ttal today remove <uuid> [uuid...]

Task Commands

Taskwarrior query utilities for searching tasks and exporting rich prompts. These commands do not require the ttal database.

# Export a task as a rich prompt (inlines referenced markdown files from annotations)
ttal task get <uuid>

# Search tasks by keyword (OR logic, case-insensitive)
ttal task find <keyword> [keyword...]

# Search completed tasks
ttal task find <keyword> --completed

# Route task to a specific agent by name
ttal task route <uuid> --to <agent-name>

# Spawn a worker to execute a task (replaces hook-based spawning)
ttal task execute <uuid>

ttal task get is designed for piping to agents — it formats the task with description, annotations, and inlined content from annotations matching Plan:, Design:, Doc:, Reference:, or File: patterns.

Task Routing

ttal task route --to <agent> resolves agents by their role field in CLAUDE.md frontmatter:

# In an agent's CLAUDE.md frontmatter:
---
role: designer
---

The agent's role determines which prompt key is used (from ~/.config/ttal/roles.toml). The command sends a role-tagged message with the UUID, description, and completion instructions. If no agent has the required role, the error suggests checking ttal agent list.

Daemon Setup

The daemon is a long-running process (managed by launchd on macOS) that acts as a communication hub for agents.

What it does

• Telegram → Agent: Polls each agent's Telegram bot for inbound messages, delivers them to the agent's tmux session via send-keys
• CC → Telegram: JSONL watcher tails active CC session files (via fsnotify) and sends assistant text blocks to Telegram automatically — no agent action needed
• Agent → Agent: Routes ttal send --to b between agents via tmux with attribution (agent identity from TTAL_AGENT_NAME env)
• Worker cleanup: Processes post-merge cleanup requests (close session, remove worktree, mark task done)

Config

Config lives in ~/.config/ttal/config.toml (created by ttal daemon install):

[teams.default]
chat_id = "845849177"
team_path = "/path/to/agents"

[teams.default.agents.kestrel]
# Bot token resolved from .env: KESTREL_BOT_TOKEN

• chat_id — Telegram chat ID for the team
• agents — per-agent config (bot tokens stored in ~/.config/ttal/.env)
• Notification bot token: {TEAM}_NOTIFICATION_BOT_TOKEN in .env

Commands

# Install launchd plist + create config template
ttal daemon install

# Remove launchd plist, socket, and pid file
ttal daemon uninstall

# Check if daemon is running
ttal daemon status

# Run daemon in foreground (for debugging)
ttal daemon

Logs

tail -f ~/.ttal/daemon.log

Messaging — ttal send

Send messages between agents and humans with explicit direction:

# System/hook delivers to agent via tmux
ttal send --to kestrel "Task started: implement auth"

# Agent-to-agent via tmux (recipient sees [agent from:yuki] attribution)
# Agent identity comes from TTAL_AGENT_NAME env var
ttal send --to kestrel "Can you review my auth module?"

# Read message from stdin
echo "done" | ttal send --to kestrel --stdin

Note: Agent → Telegram is handled automatically by the daemon's JSONL watcher — agents don't need to call ttal send to reach humans.

Message formats delivered to CC terminal:

[telegram from:neil]
Can you check the deployment?

[agent from:yuki]
Can you review my auth module?

PR Commands

Manage Forgejo pull requests directly from worker sessions. Context is auto-resolved from TTAL_JOB_ID (task UUID prefix) → project_path → git remote get-url origin.

# Create PR (stores pr_id in task UDA automatically)
ttal pr create "feat: add user authentication"
ttal pr create "fix: timeout bug" --body "Fixes #42"

# Modify PR title or body
ttal pr modify --title "updated title"
ttal pr modify --body "updated description"

# Squash-merge the PR (deletes branch by default)
ttal pr merge
ttal pr merge --keep-branch

# Add a comment to the PR
ttal pr comment create "LGTM — no critical issues"

# List comments on the PR
ttal pr comment list

Review Flow

The reviewer is advisory only — they post a verdict but never merge:

1. Reviewer examines the PR and posts a comment ending with VERDICT: LGTM or VERDICT: NEEDS_WORK
2. Coder triages the review. Even with LGTM, the reviewer may note non-blocking issues that should be addressed first
3. Coder fixes remaining issues, posts a triage update via ttal pr comment create
4. Coder merges with ttal pr merge once all issues are addressed — the PR is already approved

Requires FORGEJO_URL and FORGEJO_TOKEN environment variables.

Environment Variables

Forgejo API

Required by: ttal pr *, ttal worker close (smart mode).

Worker Commands

Taskwarrior UDAs

Worker commands require these User Defined Attributes in ~/.taskrc:

uda.branch.type=string
uda.branch.label=Branch

uda.project_path.type=string
uda.project_path.label=Project Path

uda.pr_id.type=string
uda.pr_id.label=PR ID

External Dependencies

Worker commands require these tools in $PATH:

• task - Taskwarrior (task tracking)
• tmux - Terminal multiplexer (worker and agent sessions)
• git - Version control (worktrees, branch management)
• fish - Fish shell (used in tmux sessions)

Modify Command Syntax

The modify command uses field:value syntax for updates:

• field:value - Update a field value
• Use quotes for values with spaces: name:'My Project Name'
• Combine multiple updates: name:'New Name' path:/new/path

Available Fields

Agent fields:

• voice - Kokoro TTS voice ID
• emoji - Display emoji
• description - Short role summary
• role - Agent role (maps to prompt key in prompts.toml or roles.toml)

Project fields:

• alias - Project alias (rename)
• name - Project name
• path - Filesystem path

Examples

ttal project modify clawd name:'New Name' path:/new/path
ttal agent modify yuki voice:af_heart description:'Task orchestration'

Commit Convention

When building ttal-cli, use the following commit format:

ttal: [category] description

Example: ttal: impl - add worker execute
         ttal: refactor - optimize tag queries

Status Values

Agents can have one of three status values:

• idle - Available for task assignment
• busy - Currently working
• paused - Temporarily disabled

License

MIT