Howitzer CLI Reference
The howitzer command-line interface provides full headless parity with the desktop workbench. It allows shell natives, build scripts, and CI/CD pipelines to execute deterministic model inference, prompt regression assertions, and encrypted secrets management.
1. Installation
# Method A: Direct curl installer
curl -fsSL https://howitzer.app/install.sh | sh
# Method B: Homebrew tap (macOS & Linux)
brew install nodesman/tap/howitzer
curl -fsSL https://howitzer.app/install.sh | sh
# Method B: Homebrew tap (macOS & Linux)
brew install nodesman/tap/howitzer
2. Core Command Matrix
| COMMAND SYNTAX | FUNCTION / DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
howitzer run <model> "prompt" |
Executes a prompt against a local or cloud model with streaming stdout. |
cat file | howitzer run <model> |
Pipes stdin directly as prompt context or input payload. |
howitzer shootout --models <m1,m2> |
Runs parallel multi-model comparison and outputs unified character diffs. |
howitzer foundry synth |
Headless synthetic dataset generation from directory of documents. |
howitzer foundry lora |
Headless LoRA training job on Apple Silicon Metal shaders. |
eval $(howitzer env export) |
Decrypts keys from hardware enclave and exports to shell environment. |
3. Practical Shell Automation Examples
Piping Code into Local Qwen for Refactoring
cat src/network.cpp | howitzer run qwen-2.5-coder "Refactor into async ASIO handlers" > src/network_async.cpp
Automated CI/CD Prompt Assertion
Assert that a model output strictly adheres to a target JSON schema before committing to main:
howitzer run gemini-3.5-flash "Extract user intent" \
--schema ./schemas/intent.json \
--assert-valid
--schema ./schemas/intent.json \
--assert-valid
Secure Shell Environment Injection
# Safely populate OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY from the secure enclave
eval $(howitzer env export --env prod)
eval $(howitzer env export --env prod)