Z.AI CLI

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Analyzing a screenshot, image or video for errors or text
• Running a real-time web search with domain or recency filters
• Converting a web page to markdown
• Searching and reading code in a GitHub repository

Example prompts

• “Look at ./screenshot.png and tell me which errors it shows.”
• “Search the web for recent posts about SQLite WAL mode, limited to the last week.”
• “Read https://example.com/docs/guide as markdown.”
• “Use the repo command to read the README of a public GitHub project.”

Requirements

• npx, to run zai-cli
• A Z_AI_API_KEY from Z.AI

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 4a13708. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • npx

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

  • z.ai

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names these keys or tokens, usually read from environment variables:

  • Z_AI_API_KEY

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Z.AI CLI loads about 528 tokens when it runs, and up to ~866 if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 109 tokens; SKILL.md has 121 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~109

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~528

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~866

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from numman-ali/zai-cli at commit 4a13708, republished under its MIT licence (© numman-ali). 121 words, ~528 tokens.

name

zai-cli

description

Z.AI CLI providing: - Vision: image/video analysis, OCR, UI-to-code, error diagnosis (GLM-4.6V) - Search: real-time web search with domain/recency filtering - Reader: web page to markdown extraction - Repo: GitHub code search and reading via ZRead - Tools: MCP tool discovery and raw calls - Code: TypeScript tool chaining Use for visual content analysis, web search, page reading, or GitHub exploration. Requires Z_AI_API_KEY.

export Z_AI_API_KEY="your-api-key"

# Analyze an image
npx zai-cli vision analyze ./screenshot.png "What errors do you see?"

# Search the web
npx zai-cli search "React 19 new features" --count 5

# Read a web page
npx zai-cli read https://docs.example.com/api
npx zai-cli read https://docs.example.com/api --with-images-summary --no-gfm

# Explore a GitHub repo
npx zai-cli repo search facebook/react "server components"
npx zai-cli repo search openai/codex "config" --language en
npx zai-cli repo tree openai/codex --path codex-rs --depth 2

# Check setup
npx zai-cli doctor

© numman-ali, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file (references) in skills/zai-cli of numman-ali/zai-cli.

• SKILL.md
• references/advanced.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 4a13708

Used in 1 other repository

We found 1 copy of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders. This page covers the copy in numman-ali/zai-cli, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

• numman-ali/n-skillsskills/tools/zai-cli/skills/zai-cli