What is the orca-cli skill?

It teaches an agent to use the orca CLI to manage Orca worktrees, folder contexts, terminals, repos, automations, artifacts, and the embedded browser. It resolves the session executable and loads a version-matched guide first.

How do I load the version-matched guide?

Run the resolved Orca executable with skills get orca-cli, preferring --json. If skills get is unknown, updating Orca restores the guide; use --help for read-only discovery and do not guess unsupported commands.

Orca CLI

SkillAI & models

The orca-cli skill teaches an AI agent to drive the Orca command line tool, which manages Orca worktrees, folder contexts, terminals, repos, automations, artifacts, and an embedded browser.

Use Orca CLI in Claude, ChatGPT or Ahel Desktop

Free. Sign in, add Orca CLI and connect your AI. About a minute.

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Then ask your AI: use the Orca CLI skill

Details

Instructions available. Your AI can read the instructions. Execution depends on the setup they require.

Account requirements not reviewed. Check the skill instructions before use; Ahel provides instructions and does not run this skill.

No other account needed.

Have an Orca session available, since the skill operates on Orca-managed state.

Orca CLIStart free

What your AI can do with it

Resolve the correct Orca executable for the current session
Load a version-matched command guide with ORCA skills get orca-cli
Manage Orca worktrees, folder contexts, terminals, and repos
Work with Orca automations, artifacts, and the embedded browser
Share skills and read or write worktree comments
Hand off work between agents through Orca

Getting started

Have an Orca session available, since the skill operates on Orca-managed state.
Resolve the Orca executable for the session: use ORCA_CLI_COMMAND if set, orca-dev in a dev checkout exposing ORCA_DEV_REPO_ROOT, orca-ide on Linux outside an Orca-managed terminal, otherwise orca.
Run the resolved executable with skills get orca-cli to load the version-matched command guide, preferring --json.
If a command reports Orca is not running, start it with the resolved executable followed by open --json and retry.
If a command fails with runtime_access_denied, re-run it with escalated permissions instead of running open or restarting Orca.

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by stablyai/orca in skills/orca-cli/SKILL.md and read by Ahel’s review.

This discovery stub loads the version-matched guide from the Orca executable used for this session.

Resolve the CLI for this session

Choose the executable once and reuse it for every later command:

If the ORCA_CLI_COMMAND environment variable is set, use its value. Orca exports this for managed WSL sessions.
Otherwise, in a dev checkout whose session exposes ORCA_DEV_REPO_ROOT, use orca-dev.
Otherwise, on Linux outside an Orca-managed terminal, use orca-ide. Never run bare orca there — outside Orca's terminals it normally resolves to the GNOME Orca screen reader (/usr/bin/orca) and starts speech on the user's machine.
Otherwise, use orca.

Below, ORCA is a placeholder for the executable you resolved. Substitute it before running anything; do not create a shell variable or run ORCA literally. This works the same way in POSIX shells, PowerShell, and cmd.exe.

If the selected executable cannot run, report its exact error and stop. Do not fall through to another executable, which could silently target a different Orca build.

Load the version-matched guide before running Orca commands

ORCA skills get orca-cli

Prefer --json. Use the selected executable's --help for commands or flags the guide does not cover. If a command reports that Orca is not running, start it with ORCA open --json and retry. If it fails with runtime_access_denied, your sandbox blocked the connection: re-run it with escalated permissions, and do not run ORCA open or restart Orca. If skills get is unknown, explain that updating Orca restores the guide; use --help for read-only discovery and do not guess unsupported commands.

Signals

GitHub stars: 82k
Forks: 5k
Last commit: Oct 2026
Installs: 284k installs

Others that do the same job

orca-cli
Skill · stablyai

Questions

What is the orca-cli skill?: It teaches an agent to use the orca CLI to manage Orca worktrees, folder contexts, terminals, repos, automations, artifacts, and the embedded browser. It resolves the session executable and loads a version-matched guide first.
How do I load the version-matched guide?: Run the resolved Orca executable with skills get orca-cli, preferring --json. If skills get is unknown, updating Orca restores the guide; use --help for read-only discovery and do not guess unsupported commands.

Advanced

Item type: skill
Key: orca-cli
Source: github.com/stablyai/orca

github.com/stablyai/orca

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