parc 0.1
CLI · §01

CLI overview

The parc command is the primary way to interact with a vault. It speaks JSON when you ask it to, respects $EDITOR, returns meaningful exit codes, and pipes well.

# Command map

Group Commands
Fragments new, list, show, edit, set, delete
Search search
Links link, unlink, backlinks
Attachments attach, detach, attachments
History history
Organization tags, archive, trash
Export & import export, import
Vault management init, vault
Maintenance reindex, doctor, git-hooks, types, schema, completions

A few commands are also dispatched through this CLI but live in their own pages:

# Type aliases

The five built-in types have single-letter aliases that work everywhere a type is expected:

Alias Expands to
n new note
t new todo
d new decision
r new risk
i new idea 
parc n "Quick capture"            # = parc new note "Quick capture"
parc t "Buy bread" --priority low # = parc new todo "Buy bread" --priority low
parc list t                        # = parc list todo

You can change or extend the alias map in <vault>/config.yml#aliases.

# Global flags

Flag Description
--vault <path> Use a specific vault. Also via the PARC_VAULT env var.
--json Machine-readable JSON output. Use this when scripting.
--no-color Suppress ANSI colour. Implied when stdout is not a TTY.
--quiet Suppress non-error output.
-h, --help Per-command help.
-V, --version Print version and exit.

# Exit codes

Code Meaning
0 Success
1 Generic failure
2 Usage error (bad flag, missing arg)
3 Vault not found
4 Fragment not found / ambiguous prefix
5 Validation error (schema or DSL)

--json output always includes a top-level "ok": true|false field so you can branch on it without checking exit codes.

# Where output goes

  • Human output → stdout, formatted with termimad
  • Machine output (--json) → stdout as a single newline-terminated JSON value
  • Errors → stderr, never mixed into JSON output
  • Editor invocations → take over the terminal, then resume parc when the editor exits