hyperhive/docs/tools/hivectl.md

hivectl

hivectl is the operator-facing host CLI for hyperhive. It lives on the host (not inside any container). It talks to hive-c0re over the host admin socket /run/hyperhive/host.sock, which is root-only by default — so it needs sudo unless you grant sudoless access by listing your login user in services.hyperhive.c0re.adminUsers (adds you to the hive-admin group that owns the socket; see docs/boundary.md). Available via the hive-c0re package in the host NixOS config.

Unlike the hive-c0re daemon subcommands (which go through the broker), hivectl covers direct host-side administration: manual provisioning of forge + matrix accounts, gateway htpasswd management, container lifecycle shortcuts, and interactive agent shell access.

This page is the curated guide. For the exhaustive flag-by-flag reference auto-generated from the binary's own command tree, see hivectl-cli.md — emitted by the hidden hivectl markdown-docs subcommand and kept in lockstep with the code by the hivectl-docs flake check (CI fails if the committed copy drifts). Regenerate with nix build .#default && ./result/bin/hivectl markdown-docs > docs/tools/hivectl-cli.md.

Forge

Manual entry to the same idempotent provisioning flow hive-c0re runs at boot. Useful for recovery, ad-hoc re-provisioning, or fixing a single agent without bouncing the daemon.

hivectl forge create-user iris          # provision (or refresh) forge account for agent `iris`
hivectl forge create-user mara          # create forge account for a human user; prints token to stdout
hivectl forge create-user mara --password hunter2  # set a web-login password
hivectl forge create-user mara --password-stdin    # read password from stdin (safer for scripting)

hivectl forge reconcile-config iris             # show local-applied <-> forge config divergence, then prompt
hivectl forge reconcile-config iris --from forge   # reset local applied checkout to forge main (effective next deploy)
hivectl forge reconcile-config iris --verbose      # include the full diff, not just --stat

• For agents (name has a state dir under /var/lib/hyperhive/agents/): token is persisted to <state>/forge-token. Re-running refreshes the token (idempotent — scope always matches current TOKEN_SCOPES).
• For non-agents (humans): creates the account and prints the token to stdout; no state dir is created. Re-running after account already exists re-mints the token and prints it again — safe for password resets.
• Without --password / --password-stdin a random throwaway password is used (fine for agents — they auth by token).
• reconcile-config <agent> shows the divergence between the agent's local applied config checkout and its forge agent-configs/<agent> main, then reconciles. --from forge resets the local checkout to forge main (takes effect on the next deploy — it does not auto-rebuild). --from local is not supported yet (forge main is core-only branch-protected; resolve via a config PR). With no --from it prompts for the direction after the diff.

Matrix

Manual entry to the same idempotent matrix provisioning flow hive-c0re runs at boot. Requires the hive-matrix container to be running (services.hyperhive.matrix.enable = true).

hivectl matrix create-user iris         # provision (or re-provision) matrix account for agent `iris`
hivectl matrix create-user mara         # create matrix account for a human; prints access_token to stdout
hivectl matrix create-user mara --password hunter2  # set a client-login password
hivectl matrix sync-admin               # provision / refresh the hive internal admin account
hivectl matrix promote-user mara        # promote an existing matrix user to homeserver admin
hivectl matrix reset-password iris      # generate and set a new random password for `iris`; prints it
hivectl matrix invite mara              # invite a user to the hive Space
hivectl matrix invite @mara:server --room '#hive-chat:server'  # ...or to a specific room/alias

• create-user: for agents, persists the access_token to <state>/matrix-token. Skips registration when the file already exists — delete it first to force re-registration.
• sync-admin: ensures the hive's internal admin matrix user exists (used by hive-c0re for admin-room commands). Token persisted to the admin token path. Safe to run again — idempotent.
• promote-user: promotes an already-registered user to homeserver admin via the matrix admin API. Requires sync-admin to have run first (needs a valid admin token).
• reset-password: calls the matrix admin API to set a new random password and prints it to stdout. Useful if an agent or human lost credentials.
• invite: invites a matrix user (full @user:server or a bare localpart, qualified with the homeserver's server_name) to the hive Space by default, or to a --room id / #alias. Uses the hive admin token; the admin account must be a member of the target room with invite power (it owns the hive Space, so that case always works). Idempotent — already-member / already-invited is a no-op.

GitHub

Write an operator-supplied GitHub personal access token (PAT) into an agent's token file so its gh wrapper + git credential helper can act as the bot account. Unlike forge/matrix there is no account creation — the PAT is for an existing GitHub account. A CLI alternative to the dashboard credentials tab; the GitHub integration is on by default (hyperhive.github.enable), so no per-agent config is needed.

hivectl github set-token damocles --token-stdin   # paste the PAT on stdin (preferred)
hivectl github set-token damocles --token <pat>    # inline (visible in shell history)

• set-token: writes <state>/github-token (0600, agent-owned) via hive-priv — the same credential-injection path as forge/matrix tokens. The gh wrapper / git credential helper read it live, so a freshly-set or rotated PAT takes effect with no rebuild or restart. Refuses an empty token. See github.md for the full flow + security notes.

Gateway

Manage users in the gateway's HTTP Basic auth htpasswd file (services.hyperhive.gateway.auth). hivectl sends the request over the host admin socket; the hive-c0re daemon owns the htpasswd file at its canonical path (/var/lib/hyperhive/gateway/gateway.htpasswd) and performs the write.

hivectl gateway create-user alice --password-stdin  # add (or update) user; read password from stdin
hivectl gateway create-user bob --password hunter2  # add user inline (visible in shell history)
hivectl gateway delete-user bob                     # remove user
hivectl gateway list-users                          # list all usernames, one per line

Passwords are hashed with BCrypt (cost 12) by the daemon. The file is created if it does not exist. Re-running create-user with the same username updates the password hash in place.

Agents

Container lifecycle shortcuts that go through the host admin socket. Requires the hive-c0re daemon to be running.

hivectl agents list                # roster: every agent's status + technical state
hivectl agents list --json         # same data as raw JSON rows (for scripting)
hivectl agents restart iris        # stop + start the `iris` container (no rebuild)
hivectl agents restart-all         # stop + start every managed agent container in sequence
hivectl agents pause iris          # park iris's turn loop, leave the container running
hivectl agents resume iris         # let it drive turns again, draining what queued up

list prints a padded table with one row per managed agent — NAME STATUS REV PARENT REMIND. STATUS collapses the health flags (running / stopped, plus paused / needs-login / needs-update when set — paused is orthogonal to running, see below); REV is the first 12 chars of the agent's locked config sha; PARENT is its place in the topology tree (- for a root agent); REMIND is the count of pending reminders. It reuses the same per-agent aggregation the dashboard renders, so the CLI roster and the web UI never drift. --json emits the raw rows instead of the table.

restart is the manual equivalent of the MCP restart tool — useful when you need to kick a container from the host without going through the agent hierarchy. Failures on restart-all are collected and reported at the end rather than aborting mid-run.

pause / resume are the "stop burning tokens without losing the container" pair. Pausing writes a marker file into the agent's harness dir (<state>/<name>/harness/paused) which the harness re-stats every 5 s at the top of its serve loop; while it's there the agent drives no turns, but the container, its mounts, its warm caches, its web UI and its MCP daemons all stay up. Inbox messages queue unacked, so a resume drains the backlog rather than dropping it. Points worth knowing:

• Sticky. The marker lives on the persistent harness mount, so a paused agent stays paused across a container restart — and pausing a stopped agent makes it come up parked.
• Not a DAG. Unlike restart/stop, there's no container operation to sequence, so it applies immediately with nothing to wait on.
• Stopping a paused agent is still fast. The graceful-stop handshake is skipped for a paused agent (it would never answer), which is safe precisely because the pause check sits at the top of the loop: a paused agent has no turn in flight to checkpoint.
• Visible as paused in agents list's STATUS column, as a paused field on the JSON rows, and as a badge on the dashboard card.

Choom

Drop into an interactive Claude session inside an agent container. Replaces the current process with machinectl shell <name>@h-<name> running claude from the agent's state dir. Requires root (same as all machinectl shell operations).

hivectl choom iris                          # fresh blank Claude session in iris's container
hivectl choom iris --resume <session-id>    # rejoin a prior session by id

Bare choom starts a fresh blank session. --resume <value> passes through as claude --resume <value> to rejoin a prior session by its session id — the flag name deliberately matches the claude flag it maps to. (choom never uses claude's --continue: that's a bare flag that takes no argument and resumes the cwd's latest session, i.e. the harness's; a value after it would be consumed as the first prompt, silently poking the live harness session.) A value is required when the flag is given. Either way choom never collides with the harness's live session in the same project dir: the harness pins its own id via --resume, so a blank choom session is invisible to it. The container must be running.

choom reproduces the harness's own claude invocation so the operator lands in a faithful copy of the agent's environment:

• as the agent user, not root: machinectl shell defaults to root, which would make claude read /root/.claude (empty) instead of the agent's /home/<name>/.claude where its OAuth credentials live. choom prefixes the machine with <name>@ (the meta-flake sets the agent's unix user name to its label).
• from /agents/<name>/state: the session and CLAUDE.md (the persona) resolve against the right project dir.
• with the harness flags: --settings, --mcp-config, and --system-prompt-file from /run/hive-config/ — the same files the harness writes each turn — so the operator gets the agent's settings, the hyperhive/matrix MCP tools, and the role prompt. Each flag is included only when its file exists.
• without the onboarding walkthrough: a boot-time oneshot (hive-claude-onboarding) seeds hasCompletedOnboarding and the project trust flags into ~/.claude.json once before the harness starts, so the first interactive choom lands straight in a session instead of the onboarding/trust dialog the headless harness never completes. It's the single place hyperhive touches that file.

Open

Print (and best-effort open in a browser) one of the hive's web surfaces. Requires the hive-c0re daemon to be running.

hivectl open            # operator dashboard (same as `open home`)
hivectl open home       # operator dashboard (https://<domain>/)
hivectl open forge      # the forge (Forgejo) web UI
hivectl open matrix     # the matrix GUI (fluffychat)

The URL is resolved from the running daemon (HostRequest::Urls), which reads the per-surface public URLs from c0re's service env — so custom forge / matrix domains resolve correctly instead of assuming forge.<domain>. The URL is always printed (the reliable core, since the host is usually headless / driven over SSH), then xdg-open is tried as a convenience — a missing or failing opener is reported as a note, not an error.

A surface has no URL when it isn't browser-reachable: home needs services.hyperhive.domain; forge needs services.hyperhive.forge.behindGateway = true; matrix needs services.hyperhive.matrix.gui.enable = true. In those cases the command exits with a hint naming the option to set.