> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://adhd.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# CLI Reference

> Every adhd CLI flag, with common invocations.

Install globally and authenticate with `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` (or inherit auth from a local Claude Code install):

```bash theme={null}
npm install -g adhd-agent
```

## Examples

```bash theme={null}
adhd "design a rate limiter that survives a leader election"

adhd "name this function" --frames 3 --ideas 8 --top 2

adhd "we have a CLI that hangs for 90s on LLM calls. what's the right retry/UX?" \
    --frames 5 --ideas 6 --top 3 --context ./client.ts

adhd "..." --json > result.json
```

## Flags

| Flag                  | Default     | What it does                                                                                                      |
| --------------------- | ----------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `--frames N`          | 5           | parallel divergence branches                                                                                      |
| `--ideas N`           | 6           | ideas per branch                                                                                                  |
| `--top N`             | 3           | how many ideas to deepen / focus                                                                                  |
| `--concurrency N`     | 4           | max parallel LLM calls                                                                                            |
| `--context PATH`      | —           | inject a file as context (code, stack, constraints)                                                               |
| `--model NAME`        | SDK default | override model (generator + critic)                                                                               |
| `--critic-model NAME` | = `--model` | override model for the critic passes only (score + cluster) — use a different family to decorrelate critic errors |
| `--no-code-mode`      | —           | don't bias frames toward engineering                                                                              |
| `--no-anchor-strip`   | —           | don't strip incidental anchors (stack, tool names) from the problem before fan-out                                |
| `--json`              | —           | emit machine-readable `RunResult`                                                                                 |
| `--quiet`             | —           | suppress progress events                                                                                          |

<Tip>
  `--critic-model` exists so the judge and the generator don't share failure modes: scoring with a different model family decorrelates critic errors from generator errors.
</Tip>

## Output

The default flow prints, in order: the clustered wide set with score chips, a 2–4 idea shortlist with the ★ non-obvious pick, the trap list with one-line reasons, the top-K deepened sketches, and a provocation. With `--json`, the same content is emitted as a structured [`RunResult`](/usage/library#the-result) for downstream programs.