rhombus

Rhombus CLI

The rhombus CLI wraps the entire Rhombus REST API into a single binary. It includes 6 hand-written commands and ~60 auto-generated service groups covering 846+ API endpoints.

Installation

# Homebrew (macOS)
brew install RhombusSystems/tap/rhombus

# Shell script (macOS/Linux)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RhombusSystems/rhombus-cli/main/install.sh | sh

# PowerShell (Windows)
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RhombusSystems/rhombus-cli/main/install.ps1 | iex

Source: https://github.com/RhombusSystems/rhombus-cli

Authentication

Two methods — browser-based (recommended) or manual:

# Browser-based OAuth2 login (creates permanent API key automatically)
rhombus login

# Manual configuration
rhombus configure
# Prompts for: API Key, Output format, Endpoint URL

Profiles

Multiple named profiles are supported (like AWS CLI):

rhombus configure --profile staging
rhombus alert recent --profile staging

Environment Variables

Override any config setting:

Variable	Purpose
RHOMBUS_API_KEY	API key
RHOMBUS_PROFILE	Active profile name
RHOMBUS_OUTPUT	Output format (json/table/text)
RHOMBUS_ENDPOINT_URL	API base URL

Config Files

Stored in ~/.rhombus/ as INI format:

• ~/.rhombus/config — settings (output format, endpoint)
• ~/.rhombus/credentials — API keys (file mode 0600)
• ~/.rhombus/certs/<profile>/ — client certs for mTLS auth

Global Flags

Every command accepts these:

Flag	Description
--profile	Config profile (default: "default")
--output	Output format: json, table, text
--api-key	Override API key for this call
--endpoint-url	Override API base URL
--version	Show CLI version

Hand-Written Commands

rhombus login

Browser-based OAuth2 PKCE authentication. Opens browser, receives callback on localhost:11434, creates a permanent API key. Supports partner accounts. 5-minute timeout.

rhombus configure

Interactive setup: API key, output format, endpoint URL. Use --profile for multi-profile configs.

rhombus alert

Subcommand	Description	Key Flags
alert recent	List policy alerts from last hour	--camera (name/UUID), --after ("1h ago", "5m ago", epoch ms), --max (default 20)
alert thumb [uuid]	Download alert thumbnail JPEG	--output (file path)
alert download [uuid]	Download alert video clip	--output (file path)
alert play [uuid]	Play alert clip in browser	—

Camera names are fuzzy-matched (case-insensitive substring).

rhombus footage [camera]

Opens a Rhombus camera player in the browser. Defaults to live view. Use --start to jump to a specific time in the past.

rhombus footage "front lobby"
rhombus footage "front lobby" --start "5m ago"
rhombus footage "front lobby" --token-duration 7200   # 2-hour session

rhombus context

Generate and query deployment context for LLM-assisted analysis. Creates a snapshot of all locations, cameras, and stills.

# Generate full deployment context (stills + index)
rhombus context generate
rhombus context generate --lan          # Use LAN for faster still downloads
rhombus context generate --concurrency 8  # Parallel downloads

# Query cached context
rhombus context location "Main Office"  # Show location details + camera list
rhombus context camera "Front Door"     # Fresh still + camera details + recent activity

Output files (stored in ~/.rhombus/context/<profile>/):

• index.md — Compact deployment reference for Claude context windows. Lists all locations, cameras, hardware, and links to stills.
• manifest.json — Full machine-readable manifest with all metadata.
• stills/<camera>.jpeg — One still per camera showing what it sees.

Usage with Claude: Read ~/.rhombus/context/<profile>/index.md for deployment overview. Read individual still images to understand what each camera is looking at. Use rhombus context camera "name" for fresh stills and activity summaries.

rhombus analyze

Extract and analyze frames from alert clips or camera footage over a time window.

# Analyze an alert — extracts frames and describes what happened
rhombus analyze alert "ALERT_UUID"

# Analyze footage from a camera over a time window
rhombus analyze footage "front lobby" --period "yesterday between 8am and 9am"

# Analyze footage from all cameras at a location
rhombus analyze footage --location "Main Office" --start 1700000000000 --end 1700003600000

# LAN mode — download frames directly from cameras (faster on local network)
rhombus analyze footage --location "Office" --period "last hour" --lan

# Include motion seekpoints (default: only human/vehicle/object activity)
rhombus analyze footage "parking lot" --period "today" --include-motion

# Include evenly-spaced fill frames (not just activity frames)
rhombus analyze footage "parking lot" --period "today between 6am and 7am" --fill

# Raw mode — output frames + manifest for external analysis (skip visual analysis)
rhombus analyze alert "ALERT_UUID" --raw --output /tmp/frames
rhombus analyze footage "lobby" --period "last hour" --raw

rhombus stitch

Download video clips for detected events and stitch them into a single chronological video. Concurrent events from multiple cameras are shown in a grid layout with timestamp overlays. Uses LAN streaming when available for faster downloads.

# Stitch events from specific cameras over a time period
rhombus stitch --camera "front lobby,parking lot" --period "yesterday between 6am and 7am"

# Stitch all events at a location
rhombus stitch --location "Main Office" --period "last night between 10pm and 6am"

# Stitch with start/end times and custom buffer
rhombus stitch --camera "entrance" --start 1700000000000 --end 1700003600000 --buffer 10

# Include motion seekpoints (default: only human/vehicle/object activity)
rhombus stitch --location "Office" --period "today" --include-motion

# Save to a specific file
rhombus stitch --location "Warehouse" --period "today between 8am and noon" --output incident-review.mp4

rhombus chat

Interactive AI chat with Rhombus MIND (backed by Claude). MIND can execute CLI commands locally via tool use — it has full access to the rhombus CLI.

rhombus chat
# Then type natural language queries about your system

rhombus voice

Voice-powered chat with Rhombus MIND. Records audio via sox, transcribes with whisper-cpp.

rhombus voice
rhombus voice --model medium   # Options: tiny, base, small (default), medium, large

Dependencies: sox (recording), whisper-cpp (transcription). Models auto-download to ~/.rhombus/models/.

Auto-Generated API Commands

~60 service groups, each with multiple subcommands mapping to Rhombus API endpoints. Every generated command follows the same pattern:

rhombus <service-group> <operation> [flags]

# Examples
rhombus camera get-minimal-camera-state-list
rhombus door get-minimal-door-state-list
rhombus user get-users-in-org
rhombus event get-policy-alerts-v2 --after-timestamp-ms 1700000000000

Key Patterns

Discover available operations:

rhombus camera --help
rhombus access-control --help

Generate a JSON skeleton with all parameters:

rhombus camera get-camera-config --generate-cli-skeleton
# Prints JSON template with all available fields and example values

Pass parameters as JSON:

# Inline JSON
rhombus camera get-camera-config --cli-input-json '{"cameraUuid":"cam_123"}'

# From file
rhombus camera get-camera-config --cli-input-json file://params.json

Flags override JSON input: If both --cli-input-json and individual flags are set, flags take precedence.

Flag naming: All flags use kebab-case (e.g., --camera-uuid, --after-timestamp-ms). These map to camelCase API parameters automatically.

All API calls are POST. The entire Rhombus API uses POST, even for reads.

Service Groups

See references/commands.md for the complete list of all 60+ service groups with descriptions. The major categories:

• Devices: camera, sensor, door, door-controller, doorbell-camera, audiogateway, audioplayback, elevator, climate, badge-reader, button, ble, media-device, device-config
• Access Control: access-control, access-control-integrations, guest-management-kiosk
• AI & Analytics: face-recognition-person, face-recognition-event, face-recognition-matchmaker, vehicle, occupancy, logistics, proximity, scene-query, search
• Events & Monitoring: event, event-search, alert-monitoring, alarm-monitoring-keypad, lockdown-plan, policy, rules, rules-records, schedule, rapidsos
• Organization: org, user, user-metadata, customer, location, permission, license, feature, partner
• Integrations: integrations, webhook-integrations, org-integrations, iot-integrations, storage-integrations, incident-management-integrations, service-management-integrations, oauth, developer
• Media & Reports: video, upload, export, report, tvos-config, help-service

Common Workflows

See references/workflows.md for detailed recipes. Quick examples:

# Check recent alerts for a specific camera
rhombus alert recent --camera "parking lot" --max 5

# List all cameras
rhombus camera get-minimal-camera-state-list

# Get door states
rhombus door get-minimal-door-state-list

# Watch a live stream
rhombus footage "main entrance"

# Ask MIND about your system
rhombus chat
> "Show me all motion alerts from the last 30 minutes"

# Generate API call skeleton
rhombus report get-count-report --generate-cli-skeleton

Troubleshooting

Issue	Fix
command not found: rhombus	Run install again or check PATH includes /usr/local/bin
Auth errors	Run rhombus login or check ~/.rhombus/credentials
Wrong org data	Check --profile flag or RHOMBUS_PROFILE env var
Voice deps missing	Install sox (brew install sox) and whisper-cpp
Login timeout	Ensure browser can reach console.rhombussystems.com and callback port 11434 is free

API Base URL

Default: https://api2.rhombussystems.com

Override per-command with --endpoint-url or globally via rhombus configure.

Relationship to Rhombus API

This skill covers the CLI tool. For direct API integration (HTTP calls, SDK generation, OpenAPI spec, webhooks), install the rhombus-developer plugin. The CLI wraps the same API — every auto-generated CLI command maps 1:1 to an API endpoint.