CLI

ant <command> <uri> [flags]

Run ant <command> --help for the full flag list on any command.

Global flags

Flag	Env	Default	Meaning
--data	ANT_DATA	$HOME/data	root of the on-disk URI tree
--output / -o		json	json, or md to render record bodies as Markdown

Reading the live web

Command	What it does
resolve <input> [--on <scheme>]	normalize any id, URL, or URI to its canonical URI
url <uri>	the live https location for a URI (inverse of resolve)
get <uri>	dereference a URI: fetch and print the record envelope
cat <uri>	print just the record's body (Markdown for text, JSON otherwise)
ls <uri> [-n N]	list the members of a collection URI
links <uri>	print the outbound link URIs, the graph edges
open <uri>	open the URI's live URL in a browser
domains	list the registered domains this binary can address

The on-disk URI tree

A record's file path under --data is its URI: $HOME/data/goodreads/book/2767052.json.

Command	What it does
export <uri> [--follow N] [--to DIR] [--md]	materialize a resource and its links to the data tree
import <path>	read an exported record file back as a record
ll [<uri-prefix>]	list what is already on disk under a URI prefix
graph <uri> [--depth N] [--format dot|json]	walk links to depth N and print the subgraph

Serving the namespace

Command	What it does
serve [--addr :7777]	dereference server: HTTP GET on a URI path returns its record; /resolve, /url, /ls, /links endpoints
mcp	the same namespace as an MCP tool set over stdio: get/ls/links/url/resolve/domains
version	print the version and exit

The record envelope

get returns a stable envelope around the site's data:

{
  "@id": "goodreads://book/2767052",
  "@type": "goodreads/book",
  "@fetched": "2026-06-14T09:31:00Z",
  "@links": { "author": ["goodreads://author/153394"] },
  "data": { }
}

@links are grouped by the field they came from, so the same shape drives links, export --follow, and graph.