The command surface

aos has 121 commands in 36 groups. The full list is on every command, generated from the binary. This page is the map.

The groups

Desktop	window · display · mouse · key · permission
Point	find locates a button, menu or text by its label · draw puts a click-through arrow, ring or box with a sign on screen
Machine	system · process · power · battery · network · audio · font · pkg · debug
Content	capture · clipboard · file · exec · open · launch · webapp · subtitle
Remote	remote shares this screen and its input with a browser on the LAN
Watch	watch prints one JSON line per change to the clipboard, the focused window, or a file
Agents	serve (MCP) · service (keep a command running) · headless (run without a screen) · completion (shell completions)
Itself	doctor · commands · obs · adapters · skill · version

aos commands | head -8

How a command line is read

A command is a group followed by one or more words. aos matches the longest known route, and everything after it belongs to the command. audio output set default is one route. window move Chrome --zone=1B is the route window move plus its arguments.

Every group and command has help:

aos window --help
aos window move --help

Ask the machine what it can run

aos commands            # what this machine can run
aos commands --all      # every command, including other platforms
aos commands --json     # machine-readable index
aos commands --check    # lint the registry; exits non-zero when something is off

$ aos commands | head -6
  adapters example    Print a starter adapter, ready to save and edit
  adapters list       List the adapters this machine has loaded
  adapters path       Print the directory adapters are read from
  audio mute          Print or change the output mute state
  audio volume        Print the output volume, or set it
  battery percent     Print the charge percentage as a bare number

On a screenless machine, plain commands lists only what will run. --all shows everything and marks commands that need a display with g. Each entry in --json carries needs_display, platforms, requires_sudo and source (builtin, adapter or plugin).

The same index builds the command reference on this site and the tool list of serve mcp.

Commands that run until you stop them

watch clipboard, watch window, watch file and remote share keep running until interrupted. They are not offered as MCP tools. From a shell, use --max to make a watcher return:

$ aos watch clipboard --max=1
{"event":"clipboard","at":"…","seq":1,"length":34,"digest":"7a37ded45b5e"}

Gotchas

• The first watch sample is a baseline. --max=1 means “the next change”, which is what makes a watcher usable in a script.
• watch clipboard hides the text by default. Add --content to include it. Clipboards hold passwords.
• Some commands exist on one platform only. headless start and headless stop are Linux-only. They still appear in --all, marked, and exit 2 with a clear message elsewhere.