perplexity-cli — Command Reference

perplexity-cli [GLOBAL] search [QUERY] [OPTIONS]
perplexity-cli [GLOBAL] search --json 'JSON_STRING'
echo 'JSON_STRING' | perplexity-cli [GLOBAL] search

# Basic query
perplexity-cli search "Python 3.13 new features"

# Academic mode, filter by recency
perplexity-cli search "climate change mitigation" --mode academic --recency year

# Financial filings
perplexity-cli search "Apple Q3 2025 earnings" --mode sec

# Domain filter + result cap
perplexity-cli search "async rust" --domains "doc.rust-lang.org,blog.rust-lang.org" --max-results 5

# Date range
perplexity-cli search "AI regulation" --after "01/01/2025" --before "04/01/2025"

# Human-readable output (global flag first!)
perplexity-cli --text search "best Python ORMs"

# JSON flag (good for multi-field queries from agents)
perplexity-cli search --json '{"query": "AI governance", "search_mode": "academic", "max_results": 10}'

# Stdin pipe (great for agents building queries programmatically)
echo '{"query": "Rust vs Go performance", "search_domain_filter": ["benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org"]}' \
  | perplexity-cli search

# Extract just URLs
perplexity-cli search "Python packaging tools" | jq '.results[].url'

perplexity-cli [GLOBAL] ask [QUESTION] [OPTIONS]
perplexity-cli [GLOBAL] ask --json 'JSON_STRING'
echo 'JSON_STRING' | perplexity-cli [GLOBAL] ask

# Basic
perplexity-cli ask "What is quantum computing?"

# With model upgrade
perplexity-cli ask "Analyze the CAP theorem tradeoffs" --model sonar-pro

# Max reasoning for a hard question
perplexity-cli ask "Compare Tokio vs async-std for production Rust" \
  --model sonar-reasoning --reasoning high

# Recent sources only
perplexity-cli --text ask "What changed in Python 3.13?" --recency month

# System prompt to control output format
perplexity-cli ask "Top 5 Python ORMs" \
  --system "Respond as a JSON array with keys: name, stars, best_for"

# Restrict grounding to trusted domains
perplexity-cli ask "Rust lifetimes explained" \
  --domains "doc.rust-lang.org,blog.rust-lang.org"

# Get related questions for follow-up
perplexity-cli ask "How does TLS work?" --related | jq '{answer: .content, follow_ups: .related_questions}'

# Full JSON input (agent-preferred for complex structured requests)
perplexity-cli ask --json '{
  "question": "What are the security implications of JWT?",
  "model": "sonar-pro",
  "search_recency_filter": "year",
  "reasoning_effort": "high",
  "system_prompt": "Be precise. Cite CVEs where relevant."
}'

# Extract plain answer text
perplexity-cli ask "What is TLS?" | jq -r '.content'

# Get citations as newline-separated list
perplexity-cli ask "Rust ownership rules" | jq -r '.citations[]'

perplexity-cli [GLOBAL] chat [QUESTION] [OPTIONS]

# Interactive streaming (human-readable, watch it type)
perplexity-cli --text chat "Explain the Rust borrow checker"

# Streaming with better model
perplexity-cli --text chat "Walk me through async Rust" --model sonar-pro

# Agent use: discard streaming progress, capture final JSON
perplexity-cli chat "Explain TLS handshake" 2>/dev/null | jq -r '.content'

# Same as ask (useful to switch without changing the command name)
perplexity-cli chat "What is WebAssembly?" --no-stream

# Pipe final structured output through jq
perplexity-cli chat "Latest Kubernetes release notes" --recency month \
  2>/dev/null | jq '{answer: .content, sources: .citations}'

# Correct placement — all before the subcommand
perplexity-cli --text ask "question"
perplexity-cli --pretty search "query"
perplexity-cli --api-key pplx-xxx --text ask "question"