CLI Discovery

When you need to discover what CLI tools are available on the system, use host_bash to check directly. Do not use sandboxed bash for discovery - it may not see host-installed CLIs or auth state, leading to false negatives.

Checking if a CLI exists

which <name>        # returns path if found, exits non-zero if missing
command -v <name>   # alternative, works in all POSIX shells

Getting version info

<name> --version    # most CLIs support this flag

Use a 5-second timeout to avoid hanging on unresponsive CLIs.

Auth-check commands

For CLIs that support authentication, check whether the user is logged in:

CLI	Auth check command
gh	gh auth status
aws	aws sts get-caller-identity
gcloud	gcloud auth list --filter=status:ACTIVE --format=value(account)
az	az account show
vercel	vercel whoami
netlify	netlify status
fly	fly auth whoami
heroku	heroku auth:whoami
railway	railway whoami

Common CLIs worth checking

When doing a broad discovery, check these categories:

• Version control & code hosting: gh, git, gitlab
• Project management: linear, jira
• Communication: slack
• Cloud providers: aws, gcloud, az
• Containers & infra: docker, kubectl, terraform
• Runtimes & package managers: node, bun, deno, python3, pip3
• HTTP clients: curl, httpie
• Hosting & deploy: vercel, netlify, fly, heroku, railway

Output format

Report findings in markdown:

## Available CLIs

- **git** (/usr/bin/git) - git version 2.x.x
- **gh** (/usr/bin/gh) - gh version 2.x.x [authenticated: user@example.com]
- **bun** (~/.bun/bin/bun) - 1.x.x

## Not found: jira, linear, slack