CLI overview

Every forge command grouped by Core, Memory, Substrate, Quality, and Config, plus the environment variables that control enforcement and output.

The forge command surface is defined as data (src/commands.js) and reconciled against the docs by forge docs check, so a command can’t ship or disappear without the docs noticing. Commands are organized into six groups (the last is experimental).

Core

Bootstrap and maintain: init, sync, doctor, tools, catalog, docs, update, config.

Memory

Cross-session and team memory: cortex, recall, remember, brain, ledger, handoff, decide, know.

Substrate

The pre-action gate and its stages: substrate, preflight, impact, scope, context, route, verify, precommit.

Quality

Verification and safety: scan, spec, harden, radar.

Config

Providers, cost, brand, atlas, stack: brand, atlas, stack, integrations, cost.

Labs (experimental)

Experimental — may change or move: taste, uicheck, imagine, lean, anchor, diagnose, dash, report, deja, reuse, rank, collide. Documented in the reference pages above.

Conventions

• Advisory by default. Set FORGE_ENFORCE=1 to turn the substrate into a hard block on the strongest signals (vacuous prompt, un-assemblable required context, blast radius over the default 25-file threshold).
• Quiet by default. The per-command Forge <cmd> — … title is branding chrome behind --verbose / FORGE_VERBOSE; a command emits its result first.
• Pipe-friendly output. Plain text when piped; on a TTY it adds brand-palette color and confidence meters. NO_COLOR turns color off, FORCE_COLOR=1 forces it on.
• --json is available on the substrate and most analysis commands for scripting.

Environment variables

Variable	Effect
FORGE_ENFORCE=1	Turn the substrate’s strongest advisory signals into a hard block.
FORGE_GUARD_STRICT=1	Escalate the secret redactor’s DEGRADED warning into a blocking exit. By default a redaction failure prints secret redaction DEGRADED to stderr and lets output through; strict mode refuses to emit anything the redactor couldn’t fully scrub. Use it in CI or on shared boxes where an unredacted line is worse than a failed command.
FORGE_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1	Silence the “commits behind upstream” notice in forge doctor.
FORGE_NO_HINT=1	Mute the one-time init tip that prompts you to run forge init.
FORGE_VERBOSE=1	Show the per-command banner (Forge <cmd> — …) that is hidden by default.
FORGE_EMBED=1	Opt in to the embedding tier for memory recall (MinHash stays the zero-dependency default).
FORGE_LEDGER_ONLY=0	Escape hatch. Ledger-only is the DEFAULT — memory (lessons + recall/brain facts) lives only in the content-addressed .forge/ledger, and the legacy lessons/*.md + fact files are no longer written. Set 0 to restore the legacy file store while external tooling migrates.

Run forge --help for the always-current list, or forge catalog for the Start-Here index of every tool, crew, and guard with a one-line why. Forge also ships model-invoked skills (in global/tools/, surfaced through the plugin) — for example problem-solver, a structured Clarify → Classify → Diagnose → Generate → Decide → Act problem-solving cycle.

Newer commands and flags

These commands and flags are available and documented in their group pages:

Command / flag	Group	What it does
forge know	Memory	Route a fact to its correct storage home.
forge deja	Memory	Similar-past-work lookup.
forge precommit	Quality	Commit-level verification gate.
forge radar	Quality	Dependency-currency rings.
forge report	Config	Static HTML report of the repo’s Forge state.
forge tools	Config	Primary-tool selection + gitignore wiring.
forge verify --deep	Quality	Multi-lens consensus verification.
forge update --to	Core	Pin or downgrade to a specific version.