The REPL

Start the REPL with:

cyclops

The REPL keeps the full conversation history across turns. The model sees everything said earlier in the session, so you can refer back to prior context naturally.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
Enter	Submit message
Alt+Enter	Insert a newline (for multi-line messages)
Shift+Tab	Toggle between auto and review tool approval mode
Ctrl+O	Expand or collapse tool output
Ctrl+C	Cancel the current generation
Ctrl+C twice	Exit
Ctrl+D	Exit (on empty input)

Slash commands

Command	Description
/help	List all available commands
/clear	Wipe history and clear the screen
/compact	Summarize history via the LLM to save context space
/model [name]	Switch model interactively or by name
/mode	Toggle between auto and review tool approval
/mcp	Manage MCP servers
/save [name]	Save the current session to disk
/load <name>	Load a previously saved session
/sessions	List all saved sessions
/cost	Show token usage and estimated cost for the session
/exit	Quit

Running shell commands

Prefix any input with ! to run it as a shell command. The output appears inline in the REPL:

> ! git log --oneline -5
> ! npm test
> ! ls -la src/

This is useful for checking results without leaving the session.

CLI flags

Pass these before your message for one-shot runs:

cyclops [OPTIONS] [PROMPT]

Options:
  -m, --model TEXT       Model to use (overrides config)
  --stream/--no-stream   Toggle streaming output
  --cwd TEXT             Working directory (default: current dir)

Example:

cyclops --model gpt-4o --no-stream "summarise this file" < notes.txt