Interact with Front customer support platform via the frontcli CLI. Use when managing conversations, messages, contacts, tags, drafts, comments, templates, inboxes, teammates, or channels in Front. Triggered by mentions of Front, frontcli, support tickets, customer conversations, or helpdesk operations.
Interact with Front customer support platform via the frontcli CLI. Use when managing conversations, messages, contacts, tags, drafts, comments, templates, inboxes, teammates, or channels in Front. Triggered by mentions of Front, frontcli, support tickets, customer conversations, or helpdesk operations.
CLI for Front customer support. Manages conversations, messages, contacts, tags, drafts, comments, templates, and more.
Quick Start
Verify auth before any operation:
frontcli auth status
frontcli whoami --json
If not authenticated, the user must run frontcli auth login interactively (requires browser for OAuth). Do not attempt auth setup on behalf of the user.
Core Rules
Always use --json when parsing output. Human-readable format is for display only.
Use correct ID prefixes -- see ID Reference below. Wrong prefix produces a clear error.
Read before write -- fetch current state before modifying (archive, assign, tag, reply).
Pipe with jq -- extract IDs/fields: frontcli conv list --json | jq -r '._results[].id'
Multi-account -- use --account user@email.com if the user has multiple Front accounts.
Do not inspect keychain contents. Use frontcli auth status, frontcli auth list, and frontcli whoami; if auth fails, ask the user to run frontcli auth login.
ID Reference
Prefix
Resource
Example
cnv_
conversation
cnv_abc123
msg_
message
msg_abc123
cmt_
comment
cmt_abc123
tea_
teammate
tea_abc123
tag_
tag
tag_abc123
inb_
inbox
inb_abc123
cha_
channel
cha_abc123
ctc_
contact
ctc_abc123
msg_
draft
msg_abc123
rsp_
template
rsp_abc123
att_
attachment
att_abc123
hdl_
handle
hdl_abc123
Output Formats
Flag
Format
Use case
(default)
Table
User-facing display
--json
JSON
Agent parsing, scripting
--plain
TSV
Pipe to awk/cut
JSON list responses wrap results in ._results[]. Single-object responses return the object directly.
Workflows
Read a Conversation Thread
# Full message bodies + comments (timeline view)
frontcli conv get cnv_xxx --full --json
# Metadata only
frontcli conv get cnv_xxx --json
# Messages only
frontcli conv messages cnv_xxx --json
# Comments only
frontcli conv comments cnv_xxx --json
Use --full when you need message content; omit for metadata only.
Search / List Conversations
# List recent open conversations
frontcli conv list --status open --limit 10 --json
# List by inbox or tag
frontcli conv list --inbox inb_xxx --json
frontcli conv list --tag tag_xxx --json
# Free-text search
frontcli conv search "customer issue" --json
# Filtered search
frontcli conv search --from client@co.com --status open --json
frontcli conv search --tag tag_xxx --assignee me --json
frontcli conv search --after "2025-01-01" --before "2025-02-01" --json
Comments are internal notes visible only to teammates:
frontcli comments create cnv_xxx --body "Internal note: customer is VIP"
Manage Tags
# List available tags
frontcli tags list --json
# Find tag ID by name
frontcli tags list --json | jq -r '._results[] | select(.name == "Urgent") | .id'# Tag / untag a conversation
frontcli conv tag cnv_xxx tag_xxx
frontcli conv untag cnv_xxx tag_xxx
frontcli templates list --json
frontcli templates use rsp_xxx
# Use template body in a reply
BODY=$(frontcli templates use rsp_xxx)
frontcli msg reply cnv_xxx --body "$BODY"
Drafts
Drafts are Front draft messages, so their IDs usually start with msg_.
Front requires channel_id in the request body for POST /conversations/{conversation_id}/drafts.
That means frontcli drafts create <cnv> must include --channel, even though the conversation
already exists. If Front returns body.channel_id: missing, the CLI is too old or the command is
missing --channel.
Resolve the channel before creating a reply draft:
# Read the last message recipients and identify the address the customer mailed.
frontcli conv messages cnv_xxx --json
# Map that address to a Front channel and inbox.
frontcli channels list --json
frontcli inboxes channels inb_xxx --json
Use a small HTML file with paragraph tags for multi-paragraph email bodies. Plain text bodies may
render as one dense block in Front:
<p>Dag Tobias,</p><p>Merci om dit door te sturen.</p><p>...</p>
Do not use frontcli drafts create --channel ... --to ... when the user asked for a reply draft;
that creates a new draft conversation instead of attaching the draft to the existing thread.
If using a local dev build and auth works in the user shell but fails for the agent, rerun the same
frontcli command outside the sandbox. macOS Keychain access may be scoped to the executable and
the sandbox context.
