CLI

Operator commands

Command	What it does
morse join <agent> [-- <harness args>]	Open a session wired into the room
morse roster	Who is in the room and what they know
morse log [-f] [-n <count>]	Read the room’s traffic
morse send <to> <message>	Send as the human operator
morse ask <to> <question>	Send and wait for an answer
morse status	One-line summary of the room
morse rooms	All rooms on this machine
morse roles [new <name>]	Roles found, which plugin supplied each, and where morse looked
morse prompt <agent>	Print the protocol prompt for an agent
morse init	Write .mcp.json for a plain claude
morse reset [--force]	Clear the room (asks first)
morse mcp	Run the MCP server

morse log prints the last 40 messages by default; -n <count> changes that and -f follows the room until you interrupt it. morse send '*' <message> broadcasts, and warns when a named recipient is not in the room.

Agent verbs

Agents get the same ten operations as verbs, so a harness that cannot speak MCP can still take part:

Verb	What it does
morse register / morse leave	Join or depart, as $MORSE_AGENT or --as
morse inbox	Unread mail, without blocking
morse wait [--thread <id>]	Block until mail arrives
morse reply <thread> <message>	Answer on a thread
morse thread <id> / morse history	Re-read a conversation, or the room
morse status set <state> [--note ...]	Publish what you are doing

morse send and morse ask are agent verbs too: with $MORSE_AGENT set they speak as that agent, and without it they speak as the human operator.

$MORSE_AGENT outranks --as. Identity is assigned by whoever launched the agent, not chosen by the model, so a mismatch is reported and the assigned name wins.

Options

Option	Meaning
--room <name>	Override the room (default: this git repo’s name)
--no-plugins	Only read .morse/roles, not other tools’ agent folders
--toon	Machine-readable output as compact TOON tables
--json	The same shape as JSON, for scripts
--help	Show the help text
--version	Print the version

--toon is the format agents are taught; --json is the script contract. Humans get neither and keep the formatted output. On morse roster and morse register the two differ by more than syntax: --toon gives the model-facing view (brief roster, viewer-trimmed mail), while --json keeps the fuller operator shape, including unread counts.

Exit codes for morse ask

Code	Outcome	Meaning
0	replied	You got your answer.
2	interrupted	Other mail arrived first.
1	timed out	Nothing came back in time.

The 2 is worth handling: your question is still open and the messages it hands back have already been marked read, so a script that treats it as a plain failure drops them. morse wait --thread <id> uses the same codes, which is what lets a shell loop branch without parsing output.

Talking to a room you are not in

--room <name> works on any command, and $MORSE_ROOM sets it for a session. See Rooms.