crewship ask

ask is the low-friction prompt — type a question, get an answer, no agent slug to remember. The agent resolves from --agent, then the CREWSHIP_DEFAULT_AGENT env var, then the saved default-agent config key, then (in a TTY) an interactive picker. Designed for shell pipelines like git diff | crewship ask "review this". Defined in cmd/crewship/cmd_ask.go.

crewship ask [prompt] [flags]

A new chat is created per invocation (origin tagged CLI, so the web UI sidebar shows a violet CLI chip). To send follow-ups to an existing chat, use crewship run --chat <chat-id> instead. Auth: requires crewship login plus a workspace context. Both checks are skipped in offline modes (--dry-run, --estimate).

The no-subcommand shortcut

ask is also reachable straight from the root command, so a quick question doesn’t need a subcommand at all:

crewship -p "why did the last deploy fail?"   # explicit, always works
crewship "why did the last deploy fail?"      # bare prompt

A bare one- or two-word invocation is treated as a mistyped subcommand, not a prompt. Commands are <noun> <verb> (crewship routine list), so a typo is almost always one or two slug-shaped tokens — and dispatching those to an agent silently starts a paid run instead of failing. A CLI typo in a script must exit non-zero, not spend money, so:

crewship schedule list   # → unknown command "schedule" (exit 1), no agent run
crewship routnie list    # → unknown command "routnie" — did you mean routine?

Three or more bare words are still sent as a prompt (crewship why is this slow), as is any single argument containing whitespace (crewship "say hi"). To force a short prompt through, use -p — it always bypasses the guard: crewship -p "schedule list".

Flags

Flag	Default	Effect
`--agent <slug-or-id>`	(config)	Override the saved default-agent. Resolved via `/api/v1/agents`.
`--agents <csv>`	(unset)	Fan out the prompt across multiple agents in parallel. Overrides `--agent`.
`-p`, `--prompt <text>`	(unset)	Prompt text, `@path` to read a file, or `@-` to read from stdin.
`-q`, `--quiet`	`false`	Only print the agent’s text — no `[agent: …]` / `[done]` banners on stderr.
`--no-stream`	`false`	Wait for `done`, print only the final text.
`--wait`	`false`	Alias for `--no-stream` — same spelling as `crewship pipeline run --wait` / `crewship hire --wait` / `crewship mission start --wait`.
`--timeout <secs>`	`0`	HTTP timeout in seconds; `0` = no timeout.
`--max-turns <n>`	`0`	Cap the agent loop at N turns for this run (`0` = adapter default, 50 interactive).
`--with-git-diff`	`false`	Append `git diff` as context.
`--with-git-staged`	`false`	Append `git diff --staged` as context.
`--with-git-log`	`false`	Append the last 20 commits.
`--with-git-status`	`false`	Append `git status -s`.
`--with-file <path>`	(unset)	Append a file’s contents. Repeatable.
`--with-cmd <shell>`	(unset)	Append the stdout of a shell command. Repeatable.
`--paste`	`false`	Append the system clipboard (`pbpaste` / `wl-paste` / `xclip` / `xsel`).
`--dry-run`	`false`	Print the assembled prompt and exit. No auth, no agent, no run.
`--estimate`	`false`	Print token-count + cost estimate and exit. No run.
`--markdown`	`false`	Force markdown ANSI styling.
`--no-markdown`	`false`	Disable markdown ANSI styling.
`--save <path>`	(unset)	Tee the agent’s text response (no ANSI) to `path`, written atomically.
`--plan`	`false`	Plan mode — produce a step-by-step plan without executing tools.
`--effort <level>`	(unset)	Reasoning effort: `minimal	low	medium	high	xhigh`.
`--show-thinking`	`false`	Print reasoning blocks to stdout (un-truncated).

--dry-run and --estimate are mutually exclusive with the chat-creation path: nothing hits the server.

Examples

Smallest case

crewship ask "what time is it on the staging box?"

If default-agent isn’t set and stdin is a TTY, the CLI opens a picker. After choosing once, it offers to save the pick as the default so subsequent ask calls are zero-config.

Pipe stdin as the prompt

git diff | crewship ask "review this change"
cat issue.md | crewship ask "summarize"

When stdin is a pipe and a positional prompt is also given, the positional becomes the instruction and stdin becomes the context.

Compose context flags

crewship ask "explain this failure" \
  --with-cmd "make test" \
  --with-git-status \
  --with-file CHANGELOG.md

Every --with-* flag is appended as a fenced markdown block; the assistant sees them in order.

Fan out to multiple agents

crewship ask "rate this PR description" --agents code-review,docs-lead,design-review

Runs all three agents in parallel against the same prompt. Each agent’s stream is interleaved with a coloured prefix so you can scan who said what.

Dry-run the assembled prompt

crewship ask "fix the failing test" \
  --with-cmd "go test ./..." \
  --dry-run

Useful for double-checking which context blocks survived deduplication before paying for inference.

Estimate cost without running

crewship ask --prompt @big-spec.md --estimate

Prints input-token count and a rough cost figure based on the workspace’s pricing config.

Save the response for later

crewship ask "summarize this week's runs" \
  --with-cmd "crewship run list" \
  --save weekly.md

--save writes the unstyled markdown via an atomic tempfile — a crashed run leaves the previous file intact rather than truncating it.

Read the prompt from stdin

crewship ask --prompt @-
# (type or paste, EOF with Ctrl-D)

Configuration

Set the default agent once:

crewship config set default-agent daniel

Saved to ~/.crewship/cli-config.yaml. Unset by passing an empty string or deleting the key.

Common errors

no default agent set. Use --agent <slug>, --agents <list>, or run 'crewship config set default-agent <slug>' — non-TTY mode (CI, piped stdin) and no agent specified.
prompt is required (positional, --prompt, stdin pipe, or --with-* flag) — the assembled prompt was empty.
no agents available in this workspace — the picker fired but GET /api/v1/agents came back empty.

Getting started

Sessions & identity

Agents & conversations

Crews, projects & workspaces

Missions & routines

Issues & triage

Skills & integrations

Inbox & notifications

Memory & journal

Observability

Cost & paymaster

Approvals & hooks

Configuration & system

Utilities

Ask

crewship ask

The no-subcommand shortcut

Flags

Examples

Smallest case

Pipe stdin as the prompt

Compose context flags

Fan out to multiple agents

Dry-run the assembled prompt

Estimate cost without running

Save the response for later

Read the prompt from stdin

Configuration

Common errors

See also

​crewship ask

​The no-subcommand shortcut

​Flags

​Examples

​Smallest case

​Pipe stdin as the prompt

​Compose context flags

​Fan out to multiple agents

​Dry-run the assembled prompt

​Estimate cost without running

​Save the response for later

​Read the prompt from stdin

​Configuration

​Common errors

​See also

crewship ask

The no-subcommand shortcut

Flags

Examples

Smallest case

Pipe stdin as the prompt

Compose context flags

Fan out to multiple agents

Dry-run the assembled prompt

Estimate cost without running

Save the response for later

Read the prompt from stdin

Configuration

Common errors

See also