Reference: Command‑Line Interface

The lectic command is the primary way to interact with Lectic. It can read from a file or from standard input, and it offers flags to control how the result is printed or saved.

Usage

lectic [FLAGS] [OPTIONS]

Flags and options

-v, --version Prints the version string.
-f, --file <PATH> Path to the conversation file (.lec) to process. If omitted, Lectic reads from standard input.
-i, --inplace <PATH> Read from the given file and update it in place. Mutually exclusive with --file.
-s, --short Only emit the newly generated assistant message, not the full updated conversation.
-S, --Short Like --short, but emits only the raw message text (without the :::Speaker wrapper).
-H, --header Emit only the YAML frontmatter of the input. With --inplace, this will overwrite the file to contain only the header (effectively resetting the conversation).
-l, --log <PATH> Write detailed debug logs to the given file.
-q, --quiet Suppress printing the assistant’s response to stdout.
-h, --help Show help for all flags and options.

Constraints

–inplace cannot be combined with –file.
–header cannot be combined with –short or –Short.
–quiet cannot be combined with –short or –Short.

Common examples

Generate the next message in a file and update it in place:
```
lectic -i conversation.lec
```
Read from stdin and write the full result to stdout:
```
cat conversation.lec | lectic
```
Stream just the new assistant message:
```
lectic -s -f conversation.lec
```

Add a message from the command line and update the file:

echo "This is a new message." | lectic -i conversation.lec