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Fossa CLI reviews your code changes directly from the terminal — catching bugs, security issues, and style violations before they reach a pull request. It’s the same Fossa engine that runs on your PRs, but pointed at your working tree, staged diff, branch, or commit.

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Who it’s for

  • Solo developers running a pre-commit check before pushing.
  • Teams wanting a shared review ruleset across every clone, IDE, and CI job — without each developer signing in.
  • AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf) running review-fix loops with structured output.
  • CI/CD pipelines failing builds on issues above a severity threshold.

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What it looks like

Running fossa review against a working tree change produces a structured report: files affected, issues grouped by severity, suggested fixes you can preview and apply, and an exit code safe for scripting. AI code review in your CLI In --prompt-only mode the same review becomes compact, structured text optimized for an AI agent to parse and act on.

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What you can do

Interactive Review

Browse files, preview fixes, and apply them one by one from your terminal.

Auto-fix

Apply every fixable issue at once with --fix.

AI Agent Integration

Feed --prompt-only output into Claude Code, Cursor, or Windsurf for autonomous review-fix loops.

Pre-push Hook

Block pushes on issues above a severity threshold with fossa hook install.

PR Suggestions

Fetch Fossy’s suggestions on an open pull request without leaving your terminal.

Business Validation

Validate that a local diff satisfies a task’s acceptance criteria before merging.

Fossy Rules

Create, update, and review team rules that the AI applies during every review.

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Limits

Trial limits reset daily. Run fossa auth status to check your current usage.

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CLI vs Fossa Web

The CLI and the Fossa web dashboard share the same review engine, rules, and repository settings. Use the CLI when you want reviews before the PR exists — on a local branch, a staged diff, or inside an agent loop. Use the web dashboard for PR reviews, metrics, and team-level configuration. Changes you make via fossa config repo and fossa rules apply to both surfaces.

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Next steps

Getting Started

Install, authenticate, and run your first review.

Command Reference

All commands, flags, and options.

AI Agents

Set up autonomous review-fix loops with coding agents.

Self-Hosted

Connect the CLI to your own Fossa instance.

Troubleshooting

Common errors, exit codes, and how to debug.