CLI Scripting - Chatwoot Developer Docs

Everything for automating chatwoot-cli: output formats and headless/CI use. Need a command? See Commands. For shell completion setup, see Getting started.

Output formats

Every command takes -o / --output:

Format	Flag	Use it for
Text table	(default)	reading at a glance
JSON	`-o json`	piping to `jq`, full API response
CSV	`-o csv`	spreadsheets, data exports
IDs only	`-q` / `--quiet`	shell pipelines

Text (default)

Human-readable tables:

ID   Status  Contact       Assignee       Inbox
194  open    Jane Doe      Shivam Mishra  WebWidget
197  open    Vinay K       Shivam Mishra  Whatsapp

JSON

Full API response, ready for jq:

chatwoot convs -o json | jq '.data.payload[].id'
chatwoot conv 123 -o json | jq '.assignee.name'

CSV

chatwoot agents -o csv > agents.csv
chatwoot convs --assignee all -o csv > "convs-$(date +%F).csv"

Quiet — IDs only

-q prints just the IDs, one per line — perfect for xargs:

chatwoot convs -q | xargs -I{} chatwoot conv {} resolve

Headless / CI use

The OS keyring isn’t available in most CI environments. Set CHATWOOT_API_KEY to override the saved token:

export CHATWOOT_API_KEY=your_token_here
chatwoot convs --assignee all -o json

Combine with --account to target a specific account:

chatwoot --account 42 convs -o csv > convs.csv

Add -v / --verbose to print every HTTP request and response to stderr — handy when something looks wrong.

Tips

-q is your friend — every list command supports it, every xargs pipeline starts with it.
Pipe to jq early and aggressively; -o json returns the full Chatwoot response, not a slimmed-down view.
Use --no-color when redirecting text output to a file or another program that doesn’t strip ANSI codes.
chatwoot --help and chatwoot <command> --help are exhaustive — the CLI’s help is generated from the same definitions that drive the binary.

​Output formats

​Text (default)

​JSON

​CSV

​Quiet — IDs only

​Headless / CI use

​Tips