Headless Mode

Run Maki non-interactively with --print / -p. Useful for scripts, CI, and automation.

maki "explain this codebase" --print

Pipe via stdin:

echo "list all TODO comments" | maki -p

Output Formats

Format	Description
`text`	Raw response only (default)
`json`	Single JSON object with metadata
`stream-json`	JSONL stream, one event per line

maki "fix the tests" --print --output-format json

JSON output includes type, subtype, is_error, duration_ms, num_turns, result, stop_reason, session_id, total_cost_usd, and usage.

Add --verbose to include full turn-by-turn messages in the output.

Claude Code Compatibility

Maki's --print is a drop-in replacement for Claude Code:

# Before
claude "fix the bug" --print --output-format json

# After
maki "fix the bug" --print --output-format json

Same JSON fields, same --output-format options, same --verbose behavior. Scripts that parse Claude Code output work unchanged.

Difference: ~40% fewer tokens used on average.

Examples

Pipe compiler errors back for a fix:

cargo build 2>&1 | maki "Fix these compiler errors." --print --yolo

Generate a changelog from recent commits:

git log --oneline v1.2.0..HEAD | maki "Write a user-facing \
  changelog grouped by: Added, Changed, Fixed. Skip chores." --print

Automated PR summaries in CI:

SUMMARY=$(git diff main..HEAD | maki "Write a 2-3 sentence \
  summary of this change for a PR description." --print)
gh pr edit --body "$SUMMARY"

Migrate an API across many files:

grep -rl 'old_api_call' src/ | while read file; do
  maki "In $file, migrate old_api_call() to new_api_call(). \
    Keep behavior identical." -p --yolo --allowed-tools Read,Edit
done

Cost tracking:

maki "refactor the database layer" -p --output-format json | jq '.total_cost_usd'