Claude Platform CLI Anthropic PBC

Use this command to install Claude Platform CLI:

winget install --id=Anthropic.Ant -e

The ant CLI provides access to the Claude API from your terminal. Every API resource is exposed as a subcommand, with output formatting, response filtering, and support for YAML or JSON file input that make it practical for both interactive exploration and automation. Compared to calling the API with curl, ant lets you build request bodies from typed flags or piped YAML rather than hand-written JSON, inline file contents into string fields with an @path reference, and extract fields from the response with a built-in --transform query (no separate JSON tooling required). List endpoints paginate automatically. Claude Code understands how to use ant natively.

ant — Claude Platform CLI

ant is the official CLI for the Claude Platform. It puts the Claude API in your terminal — send messages, manage agents and sessions, upload files, and script against every API endpoint.

Demo of the ant CLI

Documentation

Full documentation is available at platform.claude.com/docs/en/api/sdks/cli.

Installation

Homebrew

brew install anthropics/tap/ant

Go

To install from source, you need Go version 1.22 or later.

go install 'github.com/anthropics/anthropic-cli/cmd/ant@latest'

The binary is placed in $(go env GOPATH)/bin. If ant isn't found after installation, add that directory to your PATH:

# Add to your shell profile (.zshrc, .bashrc, etc.)
export PATH="$PATH:$(go env GOPATH)/bin"

Getting started

ant auth login

Or set the ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable to an API key from the Claude Console.

Then send your first message:

ant messages create \
  --model claude-opus-4-8 \
  --max-tokens 1024 \
  --message '{role: user, content: "Hello, Claude"}'

Structured flags accept relaxed JSON or YAML, so unquoted keys are fine.

Usage

The CLI follows a resource-based command structure, with nested resources separated by colons:

ant [:]  [flags...]

# List available models
ant models list

# Browse a response in the interactive explorer (the default in a terminal)
ant models retrieve --model-id claude-opus-4-8

# Extract a single field from a response, jq-style
ant messages create \
  --model claude-opus-4-8 \
  --max-tokens 1024 \
  --message '{role: user, content: "Hello, Claude"}' \
  --transform content.0.text --raw-output

# Send a file using the @path syntax
ant messages create \
  --model claude-opus-4-8 \
  --max-tokens 1024 \
  --message '{role: user, content: [
    {type: image, source: {type: base64, media_type: image/jpeg, data: "@photo.jpg"}},
    {type: text, text: "What is in this image?"}
  ]}'

# Manage beta resources such as agents, sessions, and files
ant beta:agents list

Run ant --help for the full list of resources, or append --help to any command to see its flags.

Requirements

macOS, Linux, or Windows.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.