livedesign is a command line for the livedesign API. It is built first for coding agents (an agent working in your repository, or one changing a design while you talk to it) and second for scripts: finding designs, reading a tab as text, changing it with edit operations, answering comments, and syncing designs to files.
It sits beside the MCP server, not in place of it. Both call the same API with an API token, and the API owns every change, so an older copy of the CLI never writes the old way.
Install
The CLI is the npm package @livedesign/cli and needs Node 22 or later. Run it without installing:
npx @livedesign/cli --help
or install it, which gives you the livedesign command:
npm install -g @livedesign/cli
livedesign --version
The examples below use the installed livedesign; with npx, put npx @livedesign/cli in its place.
Sign In
You need a livedesign account: the CLI acts as you, through an API token, and never as a guest. There are three ways to give it one. Whichever you use, the CLI checks the token with the API before keeping it.
In the Browser
livedesign auth login
The CLI opens a sign-in page in your browser (and prints its address, in case the browser does not open). Sign in if you are not already, and you reach an approval card, Connect livedesign CLI. Leave Read-only access off to let the CLI change designs, or switch it on so it can find and view designs but not create, edit, delete or share them. The card also says where the access goes: your own computer, 127.0.0.1 and a port number. Choose Connect, and the page says You're signed in: return to your terminal.
The terminal waits up to ten minutes for you. If the browser cannot reach it (on a remote machine, say), use a device code instead.
On a Machine Without a Browser
livedesign auth login --device
The terminal prints a page address, https://livedesign.app/oauth/device, and a code of eight letters such as BCDF-GHJK, plus a link with the code already filled in. Open the page on any device, sign in, type the code under Code shown in your terminal and choose Continue. You then see a Connect livedesign CLI card with the same Read-only access switch; choose Connect, and the page says You're connected. The terminal carries on by itself.
A code lasts ten minutes. If the page says it couldn't find the code, check it and try again; if it has expired, run the command again for a new one. Choosing Cancel on the page stops the terminal waiting. Only enter a code that a terminal you are using is showing you.
With an API Token
For CI, sandboxes and agents, create a token on liveworkspace.app, and either set it for the commands you run:
export LIVEDESIGN_TOKEN=lwt_your_token_here
or store it for this machine, reading it from stdin:
printf %s "$TOKEN" | livedesign auth login --with-token
LIVEDESIGN_TOKEN takes precedence over a stored sign-in. There is deliberately no --token flag, because a token on the command line ends up in shell history and transcripts.
Check or Sign Out
livedesign auth status # host, account, token name, role, expiry, and where it came from
livedesign auth logout # revoke the stored token and forget it
auth status never prints the token itself, and warns you when it has under 14 days left. auth logout revokes the token with livedesign, so it stops working everywhere at once. It will not revoke a token from LIVEDESIGN_TOKEN, which is not the CLI's to revoke: unset the variable, or revoke that token on liveworkspace.app.
The browser and device sign-ins create an ordinary API token named livedesign CLI. It appears with your other tokens on liveworkspace.app (marked read-only if you chose that), lasts six months, and counts towards your 20. Signing in again on the same machine replaces it and revokes the old one.
Where Your Token Is Kept
A stored token goes in your operating system's own secret store: the macOS Keychain, the Secret Service on Linux (through secret-tool), or on Windows the token sealed to your user account by Windows' own data protection. Where that store is unavailable, the token is kept in ~/.config/livedesign/credentials.json, readable only by you, and the CLI tells you so when it stores it there. If it finds that file readable by others, it tightens it and warns you.
Find and Read Designs
Commands are a resource, then a verb. doc and el are short for design and element.
livedesign design ls auth # designs whose name contains "auth"
livedesign tab ls "Auth flow" # the design's tabs
livedesign tab view "Auth flow" # the first tab, as an outline
livedesign tab view "Auth flow" --tab Flow --view graph
livedesign tab lint "Auth flow" # what is wrong with how it is drawn
livedesign tab render "Auth flow" --png auth.png
design ls covers your personal library and every team you have joined, newest first. Wherever a command takes a design, you can give its name, the start of its id, or a pasted livedesign link; a share link acts through that link. A name that matches more than one design is refused with the candidates, rather than guessed. --tab takes a tab name or the start of its id, and the first tab is used when you leave it out.
tab view reads a tab as text, the outline by default; --view picks graph, layout, comments, show (one element, with --ref) or find (with --text), and --budget fits it to about that many tokens. tab render writes a PNG or SVG preview and prints its path and size, never image bytes.
A few commands read livedesign's catalogues rather than your designs, which helps before writing anything:
livedesign template ls # the templates a design or tab can start from
livedesign template view wireframe-mobile-app # one template, as the outline of the tab it builds
livedesign icon search "message queue" # icons by name, best match first, for iconId=
livedesign schema sticky # the element kinds, or one kind's fields and values
Change a Design
livedesign design create "Shop" -f arch.json # from an elements file
livedesign design create "Coffee app" --template wireframe-mobile-app
livedesign element set "Auth flow" n3 label="Sign in" shape=stadium
livedesign edit "Auth flow" -f ops.txt # many edit operations at once
livedesign changeset revert "Auth flow" cs_8k2m4q7d1x
livedesign tab add "Auth flow" Details -f detail.json # a new tab, empty, from a file or --template
livedesign tab rm "Auth flow" Scratch # delete one tab; the others stay
Every change is one changeset, applied all or nothing and checked against the version of the tab you last read, so the CLI never silently overwrites someone else's work. Each write prints what changed, the new revision, a lint summary and the command that reverts it. Add --dry-run to see the plan without writing anything, and --summary to say what the change is for. livedesign guide edit explains how edit operations read.
design rm moves a design to the Trash for 30 days, and design restore brings it back to its folder (or the top level, when that folder is gone); the CLI has no permanent delete.
Comments and Waiting
livedesign comment ls "Shop"
livedesign comment add "Shop" api "Should this be idempotent?"
livedesign wait "Shop" --for comment --timeout 600
livedesign watch "Shop" # stream changes until you stop it
wait blocks until someone comments or the design changes (a burst of edits counts as one change), prints it and exits, which lets an agent respond to the people working beside it. Comments the CLI adds are yours.
Pages
A tab's pages (logos, wireframes and photos) have their own commands:
livedesign page ls "Brand kit" # each page, its refs and layouts
livedesign page set "Brand kit" --add logo --layout logo-icon-above # add, lay out, move, copy or delete pages
page set makes one change from its flags, or up to 50 from a JSON list with --changes.
Files, Exports and Pictures
livedesign pull "Shop" --to docs --svg # docs/shop.livedesign.json, plus an SVG per tab
livedesign push docs/shop.livedesign.json # send back each tab whose elements changed
livedesign export --all --to backup --format json,svg,md
To draw beside your agent inside a developer tool, see Designs in Your Developer Tools.
pull writes the design in the format the editor imports, and never overwrites a file holding changes you have not pushed yet (add --force to drop them). push sends each changed tab as a changeset; a tab that changed on livedesign since you pulled it is refused and named, so pull again. Only elements travel: each changed tab's elements are replaced by the file's, so an element you removed from the file is removed from the tab, and a tab the design lacks is created. Changes to a tab's name, theme or background are not sent (a tab a push creates goes up with its name), and no tab or design is ever deleted by a push. export --all writes every design you can read, for backups and docs.
Help, Guides and the Agent Skill
livedesign --help # the resources and four starting commands
livedesign tab --help # a resource's verbs
livedesign tab view --help # usage, flags and examples
livedesign guide # how-tos: build, edit, views, comments, collaborate, workbench
livedesign skill install --to ~/.claude/skills
livedesign skill print > SKILL.md
Help is kept short so an agent pays only for what it asks. skill install writes a SKILL.md that tells a coding agent when to reach for the CLI; without --to it lists the usual skills folders (such as ~/.claude/skills for Claude Code). skill print writes the same file to stdout, for agents that keep their skills somewhere else. livedesign api GET /designs calls any API path with your sign-in, as an escape hatch.
Output and Exit Codes
The CLI never prompts when its input or output is not a terminal, so it is safe in pipes, scripts and CI. stdout carries only data; hints, warnings and errors go to stderr. Output is compact text; --json gives the same data as JSON, --json=id,name picks fields, and -q prints only refs or ids. A list that was cut short ends with a line saying how to see the rest.
| Exit code | Meaning |
|---|---|
0 | Done |
1 | Refused: the input was understood but not accepted |
2 | Usage: the command line does not parse |
3 | Not found, or ambiguous: a design, tab or element |
4 | Not signed in, or not allowed (a read-only token's writes) |
5 | Conflict: the tab changed since you read it; read, retry |
6 | Rate limited |
7 | Network or server failure |
Every error names what was wrong and suggests one command that fixes it. Set LIVEDESIGN_DEBUG=1 to see what the CLI is doing, on stderr.
Profiles
The CLI talks to https://livedesign.app unless you point it elsewhere, such as a local development server. For one command, add --host https://pages.example.com; for a shell, set LIVEDESIGN_HOST. To keep several, name them as profiles in ~/.config/livedesign/config.toml and choose one with --profile or LIVEDESIGN_PROFILE:
default_profile = "work"
[profiles.work]
host = "https://pages.example.com"
Each profile keeps its own sign-in, and a profile for another host never contacts livedesign.app. LIVEDESIGN_TOKEN goes to whichever host is active, so set LIVEDESIGN_HOST beside it. A host without accounts has no tokens, so the CLI cannot act there and says so; one without the sign-in server offers no browser or device sign-in, so use --with-token. If an instance needs a newer CLI for writes, the CLI refuses them and names the version to install.
Errors and Rate Limits
The CLI is subject to the same limits as any API client, per token: on the hosted service, 300 writes and 120 reads a minute. Over that, a command exits with 6 and asks you to wait a minute and retry. A read-only token's writes exit with 4. Errors and Rate Limits has the full list and the status codes behind these exit codes.
Usage Counts
The CLI counts which commands succeed, and which fail because of the server or the network, by the command's name only (never its arguments, your designs or the host), and sends the count to the host it talks to, as anonymous telemetry. The first time it counts one, it says so. Turn it off with livedesign telemetry off, LIVEDESIGN_TELEMETRY=0 or DO_NOT_TRACK=1.
Keep It Safe
A full-access token can change and share everything you can. Give an agent a Read-only access
token when it only needs to read, keep LIVEDESIGN_TOKEN out of source control and logs, and
revoke a token on liveworkspace.app (or with livedesign auth logout) the moment you no longer
need it or think it may have leaked.
Was this article helpful?