Quick Start

Get started with OpenHands CLI in minutes

Windows Users: The OpenHands CLI requires WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). Native Windows is not officially supported. Please install WSL and run all CLI commands inside your WSL terminal. See Installation for details.

Overview

The OpenHands CLI provides multiple ways to interact with the OpenHands AI agent:

Mode	Command	Best For
Terminal (CLI)	openhands	Interactive development
Headless	openhands --headless	Scripts & automation
Web Interface	openhands web	Browser-based terminal UI
GUI Server	openhands serve	Full web GUI
IDE Integration	openhands acp	Zed, VS Code, JetBrains

Your First Conversation

Set up your account (first time only):

OpenHands Cloud (recommended)

openhands login

This authenticates with OpenHands Cloud and fetches your settings.

Configure manually

The CLI will prompt you to configure your LLM provider and API key on first run.

1. Start the CLI:

   openhands
   

2. Enter a task:

   Create a Python script that prints "Hello, World!"
   

3. Watch OpenHands work: The agent will create the file and show you the results.

Controls

Once inside the CLI, use these controls:

Control	Description
Ctrl+P	Open command palette (access Settings, MCP status)
Esc	Pause the running agent
Ctrl+Q or /exit	Exit the CLI

Starting with a Task

You can start the CLI with an initial task:

# Start with a task
openhands -t "Fix the bug in auth.py"

# Start with a task from a file
openhands -f task.txt

Resuming Conversations

Resume a previous conversation:

# List recent conversations and select one
openhands --resume

# Resume the most recent conversation
openhands --resume --last

# Resume a specific conversation by ID
openhands --resume abc123def456

For more details, see Resume Conversations.

Next Steps

Terminal Mode

Learn about the interactive terminal interface

IDE Integration

Use OpenHands in Zed, VS Code, or JetBrains

Headless Mode

Automate tasks with scripting

MCP Servers

Add tools via Model Context Protocol