CLI Overview

The AVC CLI is the primary interface — every other surface (VSCode extension, web UI, MCP server) calls these commands underneath. Each command supports --json for machine-readable output.

Global flags

Flag	Description
--json	Emit results as JSON to stdout instead of human-readable text
--help	Show help for any command

Errors are written to stderr; the process exits with code 1 on failure.

Project setup

avc init Initialize AVC for a project. Optionally set up agent integration files.

Snapshots

avc snapshot Create a snapshot of the current project state.

avc list List snapshots on the active branch.

avc info Show snapshot metadata and file list.

avc log Tree-style history of snapshots.

avc delete Permanently delete a snapshot.

Diff & restore

avc diff Compare two snapshots file-by-file.

avc diff-current Compare a snapshot against the working tree.

avc restore Roll back the entire project to a snapshot.

avc restore-file Restore a single file from a snapshot.

avc cat Print file contents from a snapshot to stdout.

avc file-history List every snapshot that contains a specific file.

avc annotate Show which snapshot introduced each line.

Branches & merge

avc branch Create, list, switch, delete, and diff branches.

avc merge Three-way merge with conflict detection and abort.

Agents & UI

avc mcp Start the MCP server for AI agents.

avc ui Start the standalone web UI server.

JSON output convention

Every command that returns structured data accepts --json. The shape mirrors what’s documented per-command. Errors always include an error field:

{ "error": "snapshot 'snap-foo' not found" }

For scripts and agents, prefer --json — it’s stable across CLI text-output revisions.