rhombus-cli

name	rhombus-cli
description	Rhombus CLI reference — installation, authentication, profiles, global flags, and the hand-written `rhombus login`, `rhombus configure`, `rhombus alert`, and `rhombus footage` commands, plus the ~60 auto-generated API service groups (camera, door, user, access-control, etc.). Use when the user asks how to install or configure the CLI, wants to run a rhombus command, asks about profiles or credentials, needs help finding an auto-generated CLI command (like `rhombus camera get-minimal-camera-state-list`), wants to pull recent alerts, or open live footage. Does NOT cover: `rhombus context/analyze/stitch` (see rhombus-deployment-context skill) or `rhombus chat/voice` (see rhombus-mind skill).
argument-hint	[command or topic]
allowed-tools	Read, Grep, Glob, Bash

Rhombus CLI

The rhombus CLI wraps the entire Rhombus REST API into a single binary. Source: https://github.com/RhombusSystems/rhombus-cli.

This skill covers installation, auth, global flags, and the hand-written commands that don't deserve their own skill. Related skills:

• rhombus-deployment-context — rhombus context, analyze, stitch
• rhombus-mind — rhombus chat, voice
• rhombus-support-links — support.rhombussystems.com article directory

Installation

# Homebrew (macOS)
brew install RhombusSystems/tap/rhombus

# Shell script (macOS/Linux)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RhombusSystems/rhombus-cli/main/install.sh | sh

# PowerShell (Windows)
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RhombusSystems/rhombus-cli/main/install.ps1 | iex

Authentication

Two methods — browser-based (recommended) or manual:

# Browser-based OAuth2 login (creates permanent API key automatically)
rhombus login

# Manual configuration
rhombus configure
# Prompts for: API Key, Output format, Endpoint URL

Profiles

Multiple named profiles are supported (like AWS CLI):

rhombus configure --profile staging
rhombus alert recent --profile staging

Environment variables

Variable	Purpose
RHOMBUS_API_KEY	API key
RHOMBUS_PROFILE	Active profile name
RHOMBUS_OUTPUT	Output format (json/table/text)
RHOMBUS_ENDPOINT_URL	API base URL

Config files

Stored in ~/.rhombus/ as INI format:

• ~/.rhombus/config — settings (output format, endpoint)
• ~/.rhombus/credentials — API keys (file mode 0600)
• ~/.rhombus/certs/<profile>/ — client certs for mTLS auth

Global flags

Every command accepts these:

Flag	Description
--profile	Config profile (default: "default")
--output	Output format: json, table, text
--api-key	Override API key for this call
--endpoint-url	Override API base URL
--version	Show CLI version

Hand-written commands (covered here)

rhombus login

Browser-based OAuth2 PKCE authentication. Opens browser, receives callback on localhost:11434, creates a permanent API key. Supports partner accounts. 5-minute timeout.

rhombus configure

Interactive setup: API key, output format, endpoint URL. Use --profile for multi-profile configs.

rhombus alert

Subcommand	Description	Key flags
alert recent	List policy alerts from last hour	--camera (name/UUID), --after ("1h ago", "5m ago", epoch ms), --max (default 20)
alert thumb [uuid]	Download alert thumbnail JPEG	--output (file path)
alert download [uuid]	Download alert video clip	--output (file path)
alert play [uuid]	Play alert clip in browser	—

Camera names are fuzzy-matched (case-insensitive substring).

rhombus footage [camera]

Opens a Rhombus camera player in the browser. Defaults to live view. Use --start to jump to a specific time in the past.

rhombus footage "front lobby"
rhombus footage "front lobby" --start "5m ago"
rhombus footage "front lobby" --token-duration 7200   # 2-hour session

Auto-generated API commands

~60 service groups, each with multiple subcommands mapping to Rhombus API endpoints. Every generated command follows the same pattern:

rhombus <service-group> <operation> [flags]

# Examples
rhombus camera get-minimal-camera-state-list
rhombus door get-minimal-door-state-list
rhombus user get-users-in-org
rhombus event get-policy-alerts-v2 --after-timestamp-ms 1700000000000

Key patterns

Discover available operations:

rhombus camera --help
rhombus access-control --help

Generate a JSON skeleton with all parameters:

rhombus camera get-camera-config --generate-cli-skeleton

Pass parameters as JSON:

# Inline JSON
rhombus camera get-camera-config --cli-input-json '{"cameraUuid":"cam_123"}'

# From file
rhombus camera get-camera-config --cli-input-json file://params.json

Flags override JSON input. All flags are kebab-case (e.g., --camera-uuid). All API calls are POST.

Service groups

See references/commands.md for the full 60+ list. Major categories:

• Devices: camera, sensor, door, door-controller, doorbell-camera, audiogateway, audioplayback, elevator, climate, badge-reader, button, ble, media-device, device-config
• Access Control: access-control, access-control-integrations, guest-management-kiosk
• AI & Analytics: face-recognition-person, face-recognition-event, face-recognition-matchmaker, vehicle, occupancy, logistics, proximity, scene-query, search
• Events & Monitoring: event, event-search, alert-monitoring, alarm-monitoring-keypad, lockdown-plan, policy, rules, rules-records, schedule, rapidsos
• Organization: org, user, user-metadata, customer, location, permission, license, feature, partner
• Integrations: integrations, webhook-integrations, org-integrations, iot-integrations, storage-integrations, incident-management-integrations, service-management-integrations, oauth, developer
• Media & Reports: video, upload, export, report, tvos-config, help-service

See references/workflows.md for common recipes.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Fix
command not found: rhombus	Run install again or check PATH includes /usr/local/bin
Auth errors	Run rhombus login or check ~/.rhombus/credentials
Wrong org data	Check --profile flag or RHOMBUS_PROFILE env var
Login timeout	Ensure browser can reach console.rhombussystems.com and callback port 11434 is free

API base URL

Default: https://api2.rhombussystems.com. Override per-command with --endpoint-url or globally via rhombus configure.

Relationship to the rhombus-developer plugin

This skill is for day-to-day CLI use. If you need direct API integration (HTTP calls, SDK generation, OpenAPI spec, webhooks, MCP tools), enable the rhombus-developer plugin. The CLI wraps the same API — every auto-generated CLI command maps 1:1 to an API endpoint.