alis ask¶
Ask a natural-language question and get a grounded, cited answer drawn only from what you can see on the platform: your past coding sessions, your specialist conversations and the skills shared with you.
Synopsis¶
Description¶
The answer streams to stdout as it is generated, followed by Sources: (typed references) and Ask next: follow-up questions. Access is enforced at retrieval: the answer only draws on content the caller can see. Quote the question.
--session continues a previous conversation so follow-ups resolve against earlier turns. Every run prints its conversation ID (under --json, the session field) to pass to the next run. Without --session each ask stands alone.
Flags¶
| Flag | Type | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
--session <id> |
string | Conversation ID from a previous alis ask; carries multi-turn context. |
Plus the global flags.
Examples¶
alis ask "which skill helps with build environments?" --json
alis ask --session "<session>" "how do I install it?" --json
JSON output¶
--json prints one AskResponse aggregate instead of a stream:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
answerDelta |
The full answer text. |
citations[] |
Each with kind and name: SKILL (bare id, load with alis skills load <name>), SESSION (contexts/<id>, the TUI's Sessions page) or TICKET (tickets/<id>, the TUI's support page). Opening a reference re-checks access at the owner. |
relatedQuestions[] |
Suggested follow-ups. |
session |
Pass back with --session for the next turn. |
Exit codes¶
| Code | Envelope | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | no_answer |
Nothing to cite; rephrase as a fuller question or search directly. |
| 1 | backend_outdated |
The backend predates ask; retry later. |
When you already know you want a skill, alis skills search is faster and returns loadable ids.