actual-software/actual-cli

Architecture questions, answered from your ADRs.
Use it through the Actual.ai Skill , which wraps the Actual.ai CLI for your coding agent.
## Quickstart
### Install Actual.ai Skill — Claude Code CLI
Start with the Actual.ai Skill. The skill wraps the Actual.ai CLI so your coding agent can use it, and installs the CLI for you on first run. Run each step as its own copy/paste.
Step 1 — add the actual-skill repo as a marketplace:
/plugin marketplace add actual-software/actual-skill
Step 2 — install the plugin:
/plugin install actual-cli@actual-cli-skills
Step 3 — reload plugins so Claude Code CLI loads the newly installed plugin:
/reload-plugins
Step 4 — run the skill in your coding agent:
/actual
The first time you run it, the skill asks for your permission to install the Actual.ai CLI for you. For example:
/actual
The actual CLI is not installed. Should I install it with:
npm install -g @actualai/actual
Then I'll verify it with actual --version.
Manual install Actual.ai CLI — npm / npx
The skill installs the CLI for you, so you only need a manual install for scripts and CI or to run the CLI outside an agent.
Step 1 — install the CLI globally:
npm install -g @actualai/actual
Or skip the install and run any command with npx @actualai/actual .
Step 2 — sign in with browser OAuth:
actual login
Step 3 — ask your first architecture question:
actual advisor "Should new services talk over gRPC or REST?"
Install Actual.ai CLI — Homebrew
bash
brew install actual-software/actual/actual
Install Actual.ai CLI — Manual download / Build from source
Each release in the releases repository (binaries are published separately from source) has one archive per platform: actual-darwin-arm64.tar.gz, actual-darwin-x64.tar.gz, actual-linux-arm64.tar.gz, and actual-linux-x64.tar.gz. Each holds a single actual binary. Download the one for your platform, extract it, move the binary onto your PATH, and run it. On Apple Silicon:
bash
curl -fsSLO https://github.com/actual-software/actual-releases/releases/latest/download/actual-darwin-arm64.tar.gz
tar -xzf actual-darwin-arm64.tar.gz
sudo mv ./actual /usr/local/bin/actual
# macOS, if you downloaded the archive in a browser: remove quarantine before running
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /usr/local/bin/actual
actual --version
actual self-update upgrades a binary installed this way after checking the new release's signature, but only in a directory you can write without sudo. To use it, put actual somewhere you own, such as ~/.local/bin, instead of /usr/local/bin. See docs/SELFUPDATE.md.
To build from source you need a C compiler for the tree-sitter native dependencies:
bash
# macOS: Xcode command-line tools (usually already installed)
xcode-select --install
# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install build-essential
cargo install --git https://github.com/actual-software/actual-cli.git actual-cli
Check a downloaded release
From v0.12.0, the release workflow publishes SHA256SUMS, which lists every archive, on both the source release page and the releases mirror. A signer adds SHA256SUMS.minisig, a minisign signature over that list, by hand after publication. A new release can remain unsigned until that step finishes; if the signature is missing, try again later. Releases through v0.11.0 carry neither file. For a signed release, check the signature first: