Commands¶

Prism ships 19 CLI commands. Each one is a thin wrapper around a single IRIS operation, so the output is the raw Atelier REST response (as JSON) unless otherwise noted.

All commands pick up connection settings from (in this order):

Environment variables (IRIS_BASE_URL, IRIS_USERNAME, …).
A .env file in the current directory.
The user's config.json (written by prism config).

Run any command with --help to see its options:

prism <command> --help

Command reference¶

Setup¶

Command	Summary
`prism config`	Save connection settings to a persistent user-level file.
`prism info`	Print IRIS server version, namespaces, and feature flags.
`prism monitor`	Monitor IRIS instance CPU, RAM, disk I/O, and process load in real time with a live terminal dashboard.

SQL and ObjectScript¶

Command	Summary
`prism sql`	Run an InterSystems SQL query.
`prism terminal`	Run an ObjectScript command via the SuperServer (native driver).
`prism ws`	Run an ObjectScript command via the Atelier WebSocket.

Documents¶

Command	Summary
`prism list-docs`	List source documents on the server.
`prism get-doc`	Fetch a document's source.
`prism put-doc`	Upload a local file as a document.
`prism delete-doc`	Delete a document.
`prism compile`	Compile one or more documents on the server.

Testing¶

Command	Summary
`prism list-tests`	Discover `%UnitTest.TestCase` classes and their `Test*` methods.
`prism test`	Run a unit test class (or a single method).

Code indexing¶

Command	Summary
`prism index`	Build a compact index of all classes in a namespace. Token-efficient alternative to reading every source file.

MCP server¶

Command	Summary
`prism serve`	Start the Prism MCP server on `http://localhost:3000/mcp`.
`prism setup`	Register Prism MCP in external tools (Claude Code, Codex CLI, OpenCode, Hermes Agent).

GUI¶

Command	Summary
`prism gui`	Launch the tkinter SQL editor GUI with database navigator, inline-editable results grid, and multi-tab editing. (Work in progress.)

Chatbot¶

Command	Summary
`prism chatbot`	Start an AI chatbot agent that orchestrates Prism's MCP tools using natural language. Connect to any OpenAI-compatible LLM API.

Plugins¶

Command	Summary
`prism cast`	Extend Prism with custom commands from Git repositories. Add repos, run commands with typed arguments and shell completion, and manage updates — all without installing packages.

Common options¶

Several options appear on multiple commands. They all behave the same way:

Option	Long / Short	Applies to	Meaning
`--format`	—	Global (before the subcommand)	Output format: `json` (default) or `toon`. Example: `prism --format toon sql "SELECT 1"`.
`--namespace`	`-n`	`sql`, `terminal`, `ws`, `compile`, `get-doc`, `list-docs`, `put-doc`, `delete-doc`, `test`, `list-tests`, `index`	Target IRIS namespace. Defaults to `IRIS_NAMESPACE` from your settings.
`--timeout`	`-t`	`terminal`, `ws`	Command timeout in seconds. Default `30.0`.
`--port`	`-p`	`serve`, `setup`	Port for the MCP server. Default `3000`.
`--flags`	—	`compile`	IRIS compiler flags (default `cuk`, from `IRIS_COMPILE_FLAGS`).

Where outputs go¶

Every command prints its result to stdout as JSON. Errors go to stderr and set a non-zero exit code, so the following works as expected in scripts:

prism sql "SELECT 1" | ConvertFrom-Json

or on Linux:

prism sql "SELECT 1" | jq .result.content

Shell completion¶

Prism includes built-in tab completion for bash, zsh, fish, and PowerShell. Once installed, pressing Tab after prism will suggest matching commands, subcommands, and options.

Install¶

# Auto-detect your current shell
prism --install-completion

# Or specify a shell explicitly
prism --install-completion bash
prism --install-completion zsh
prism --install-completion fish
prism --install-completion powershell

After installing, restart your terminal (or source your shell profile) for the completion to take effect.

Verify it works¶

Type prism conf and press Tab -- it should auto-complete to prism config.

Type prism s and press Tab -- it should cycle through sql and serve.

Type prism cast template and press Tab -- it should list all available template commands (headers, ip, portcheck, timestamp, uuid, weather).

Windows (PowerShell)¶

The Inno Setup installer does not install completion automatically. After installing Prism, run:

prism --install-completion powershell

Then restart your PowerShell session. Tab completion will work in any new PowerShell window.

Show completion script¶

If you prefer to install the completion manually (e.g. in a CI environment or a managed shell profile), you can print the script:

prism --show-completion bash    # for bash
prism --show-completion zsh     # for zsh
prism --show-completion fish    # for fish
prism --show-completion powershell  # for PowerShell