terminalDstl8 CLI

Your fast on-ramp and TUI

The dstl8 CLI is the on-ramp to Dstl8. The flow is: sign up, sign in, add sources so logs flow in, install MCP into your AI client. After that, your AI agent can investigate incidents, query logs, and analyze patterns through Dstl8's MCP tools.

The CLI also ships an interactive TUI for browsing workspaces, sources, incidents, heatmaps, and logs from a terminal.

Setup

The flow: sign up → sign in → add sources → install MCP.

Install the CLI

Pick the option that matches your environment. Each installs the same dstl8 binary.

Method
Command

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew install control-theory/dstl8/dstl8

Shell installer

curl -fsSL https://install.dstl8.ai/script/dstl8-cli | sh

npm

npm install -g dstl8 (or npx dstl8)

Nix

nix profile install github:control-theory/dstl8

Manual

Verify with dstl8 version.

1. Sign up

For new users:

dstl8 signup

Opens your browser to create a Dstl8 account and organization. Once you're done, the CLI saves a long-lived API token locally, and a Default workspace is created for you to start with.

2. Sign in

If you already have a Dstl8 account, or you're setting up a new device:

Opens your browser to authenticate. If you just ran dstl8 signup, you're already signed in and can skip this.

Confirm with dstl8 profiles — the active profile is marked .

3. Add sources

Adding a source is what gets logs flowing into Dstl8. dstl8 sources add is an interactive wizard for every source type. It auto-detects local config (~/.aws/credentials, ~/.kube/config, vercel.json, supabase/config.toml, .git/config) and pre-fills sensible defaults.

For pull-based sources (kubernetes, cloudwatch), the CLI verifies the connection before exiting. For webhook-based sources (vercel, supabase, otlp, github), the wizard prints a webhook URL and any auto-generated tokens — paste those into the upstream provider to complete the setup.

For scripted setups, pass --yes with the relevant flags to skip prompts:

Confirm logs are flowing:

4. Install MCP

This is the step that connects Dstl8 to your AI agent. dstl8 install auto-detects MCP-compatible clients on your machine and configures them:

Supported clients:

Client
Install command

Claude Code

dstl8 install claude-code

Claude Desktop

dstl8 install claude-desktop, or download dstl8.mcpb from the latest releasearrow-up-right and double-click

Codex

dstl8 install codex

LM Studio

dstl8 install lm-studio

Cursor

dstl8 install --include-experimental cursor

Windsurf

dstl8 install --include-experimental windsurf

Restart your AI client after installing so it picks up the new MCP server. Your AI agent can now query Dstl8.

The TUI

dstl8 tui opens an interactive terminal UI for browsing your data without leaving the shell. Most investigation work runs through your AI client once MCP is set up, but the TUI is useful for quick visual checks and one-off navigation.

The TUI splits into org-level views (Overview, Workspaces, Incidents, Sources) and workspace views (Dashboard, Incidents, Heatmap, Log Viewer). Use to switch tabs, or j k to navigate, Enter to drill in, and Esc to go back. Ctrl+C quits.

Sources

The org-level Sources tab lists every source connected to your organization. Press Enter to drill into streams, then Enteragain on a stream to see its logs. Press a on any source or stream to assign it to a workspace.

Workspace dashboard

Each workspace has a Dashboard with a Möbius AI summary at the top, a list of active incidents, and the sources feeding the workspace. Press Enter on the Möbius summary for a full analysis.

Incidents

The Incidents tab gives you a sortable, filterable table — Open, Resolved, Closed, or All. Press s to change the sort, f to cycle filters, and Enter on a row to open the incident detail view.

The detail view renders Möbius's full analysis: summary, description, evidence, recommended actions, alongside the impacted resources and event timeline.

Heatmap

The Heatmap plots sentiment over time by stream, namespace, or service. Anomalies surface as red dots on the affected row. Press w to change the time window, g to change the grouping, and Enter on a row to view the filtered logs for that group.

Log Viewer

The Log Viewer combines a stacked severity bar chart (1-minute buckets) with a scrollable log table. Press Enter on a log line to open a detail modal with full metadata. c copies the body to your clipboard.

For the complete list of keybindings across every view, see the READMEarrow-up-right.

Other CLI commands

A handful of commands are useful outside the TUI, especially in scripts and CI.

Tailing and fetching logs

dstl8 logs tail streams logs to stdout in real time:

dstl8 logs fetch pulls a time range and exits — useful for scripts and verifying ingestion:

Time arguments accept relative (30m, 1h, 24h, 7d) or absolute (2024-01-15, 2024-01-15T09:30:00) values. --json produces NDJSON for piping.

Profiles and workspaces

Configuration lives in ~/.config/dstl8/. Use --profile <name> on any command to run it against a specific profile without switching.

More

The full command reference, every flag, and release notes live in the dstl8-cli READMEarrow-up-right and on the releases pagearrow-up-right.

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