Skip to main content

CLI usage

The project provides a CLI named chatline for extracting, enriching, and rendering iMessage conversations.

  • Package name: chatline
  • Executable: chatline (mapped via bindist/cli.js)

Local development

  • Run from TypeScript via Bun (fast inner loop):

    pnpm dev -- --help
    pnpm dev -- --config examples/imessage-config.yaml

    Notes:

    • Everything after -- is passed through to the CLI.
    • Requires Bun installed locally. See https://bun.sh
  • Run the built CLI from dist:

    pnpm build
    pnpm cli -- --help

Installed usage (after publish)

Once installed globally or used via pnpm dlx, the CLI is available as chatline:

# Global install (optional)
pnpm add -g /chatline
chatline --help

# One-off execution without global install (when published)
pnpm dlx /chatline --help

Common flags (examples)

# Minimal config
chatline --config examples/imessage-config.yaml

# CSV ingest example
chatline ingest --csv ./path/to/messages.csv --out ./out

# Render timeline to HTML/markdown
chatline render --input ./out/normalized.json --format html

Refer to --help for the complete, authoritative list of commands and options.