Clio CLI Skill

Audience note: for power users and CI/automation. Load this skill only when you're scripting from a terminal, building shell pipelines, or debugging from clio --json output. For day-to-day accounting inside Claude Desktop / Cowork, the MCP tools cover the common flows without dropping to the CLI.

You are working with Clio (jaz-clio) — the CLI for the Jaz accounting platform. 55 command groups, 13 calculators, 12 job blueprints, 274 agent tools. Also fully compatible with Juan Accounting (same API, same endpoints).

When to Use This Skill

Running or composing clio commands from the terminal
Building shell scripts or CI pipelines that automate Jaz workflows
Debugging authentication issues (wrong org, missing key, env var conflicts)
Understanding --json output structure for piping into jq or downstream tools
Paginating large result sets (--all, --limit, --offset, --max-rows)
Chaining multi-step accounting workflows (create -> finalize -> pay -> verify)
Answering "what commands are available?" or "how do I do X from the CLI?"

Skill Relationships

| Need | Skill | |------|-------| | CLI command syntax, flags, output | jaz-cli (this skill) | | API field names, error codes, 141 gotchas | jaz-api | | IFRS transaction recipes (depreciation, leases, loans) | jaz-recipes | | Month-end close, bank recon, GST filing workflows | jaz-jobs | | Migration from Xero/QuickBooks/Sage | jaz-conversion |

Use jaz-cli when running commands. Use jaz-api when debugging API errors or understanding field mappings.

Auth Precedence

Resolution stops at the first match. Higher priority wins silently.

| Priority | Source | How to set | |----------|--------|------------| | 1 | --api-key <key> | Per-command flag | | 2 | JAZ_API_KEY env | export JAZ_API_KEY=jk-... | | 3 | --org <label> flag | Per-command profile lookup | | 4 | JAZ_ORG env | export JAZ_ORG=acme-sg (pinned session) | | 5 | Active profile | clio auth switch <label> (stored in ~/.config/jaz-clio/credentials.json) |

Critical gotcha: If JAZ_API_KEY is set in your shell, it overrides --org and the active profile. Run unset JAZ_API_KEY before switching tenants with clio auth switch.

Auth subcommands:

clio auth add <key>          # Validate key + save profile (auto-slugifies org name)
clio auth add <key> --as prod-sg   # Save with custom label
clio auth switch <label>     # Set active profile
clio auth list               # Show all saved profiles
clio auth whoami             # Show current org + auth source
clio auth remove <label>     # Delete a profile
clio auth clear              # Remove all profiles
clio auth shell-init         # Print shell exports (for eval)
clio auth unpin              # Unset JAZ_ORG from current shell

Output Formats

Every command supports --json. Most list commands also support --format <type>.

| Flag | Format | Use case | |------|--------|----------| | (default) | table | Human-readable, colored, truncated at 500 rows | | --json | json | Structured JSON envelope for piping/scripting | | --format csv | csv | Spreadsheet import | | --format yaml | yaml | Config files, readable structured output |

JSON envelope for list commands:

{ "totalElements": 142, "totalPages": 2, "truncated": false, "data": [...] }

When truncated: true, a _meta object appears with fetchedRows and maxRows.

Single-record commands (get, create) output the raw object in --json mode.

Stderr vs stdout: Resolution feedback (e.g., "Contact: Acme Corp (abc1234-...)") goes to stderr. Only data goes to stdout. This means clio invoices list --json | jq . works cleanly.

Entity Resolution

Flags like --contact, --account, --bank-account, and --tax-profile accept either a UUID or a human-readable name. Resolution order:

UUID passthrough — if the value matches UUID format, use it directly (no API call)
Server-side search — contacts use name-contains search; accounts/tax-profiles fetch all (orgs have 50-200 accounts)
Exact match — case-insensitive match on billingName/name/code
Fuzzy match — score >= 0.7 auto-resolves; multiple close matches throw with candidates
Error with suggestions — shows available entities (up to 10) for the user to choose

Examples:

clio invoices create --contact "Acme"           # Fuzzy-resolves to "Acme Corp Pte Ltd"
clio invoices create --contact abc12345-...     # UUID passthrough, no API call
clio journals create --account "Bank - SGD"     # Resolves by account name
clio journals create --account "1000"           # Resolves by account code

IMPORTANT for agents: Fuzzy matching works for --contact and top-level --account flags. It does NOT work inside --lines JSON arrays. Line item accountResourceId must be a UUID or exact account name.

Pagination

All list/search commands support pagination. Two modes:

Single-page mode (default):

clio invoices list                    # First 100 results
clio invoices list --limit 50         # First 50 results
clio invoices list --offset 2         # Page 3 (0-indexed)

Auto-paginate mode (--all):

clio invoices list --all              # Fetch all pages (concurrent, progress on stderr)
clio invoices list --all --max-rows 500   # Cap at 500 rows
clio invoices list --all --json       # Full dataset as JSON (progress suppressed)

Rules:

--all and --offset cannot be combined (throws error)
Default --max-rows is 1,000 (lowered from 10,000 in 2026-04 — fan-out lookups like attachment counts in bills draft list could spiral on busy accounts). Pass --max-rows N explicitly when you need more.
--max-rows now caps the FETCH, not just the slice (early-stop in paginatedFetch). Previously it pulled every page then sliced — multi-minute hangs on large datasets.
Table display caps at 500 rows regardless (use --format json for full output)
Progress display on stderr is TTY-aware (suppressed for --json and pipes)
bills draft list / invoices draft list / customer-credit-notes draft list / supplier-credit-notes draft list fan out one attachment lookup per draft (5 in flight). On accounts with hundreds of drafts, this is slow even with --max-rows. Pass --max-rows 10 for spot checks; expect 30s+ wall time at higher counts.

Common Flags

| Flag | Scope | Purpose | |------|-------|---------| | --api-key <key> | All online commands | Override auth for this command | | --org <label> | All online commands | Use a specific saved profile | | --json | All commands | Structured JSON output | | --format <type> | List commands | table, json, csv, yaml | | --limit <n> | List/search commands | Max results per page | | --offset <n> | List/search commands | Page offset (0-indexed) | | --all | List/search commands | Auto-paginate all pages | | --max-rows <n> | With --all | Cap total rows (default 10,000) | | --finalize | Create commands | Approve immediately (skip draft) | | --date <YYYY-MM-DD> | Create/update commands | Transaction date | | --due <YYYY-MM-DD> | Create/update commands | Due date | | --query <expression> | Search commands (14 entities) | Jaz search expression (see below) | | --filter <json> | Search commands | Raw API filter JSON (merged with flags; flags win) | | --status <status> | Search commands | Filter by status | | --from / --to | Search/report commands | Date range filter | | --contact <name> | Transaction commands | Fuzzy-resolve contact | | --account <name> | Transaction commands | Fuzzy-resolve account | | --ref <reference> | Search/create commands | Reference string | | --tag <name> | Search/create commands | Tag filter or assignment | | --input <file> | Create/update commands | Read full JSON body from file | | --plan | Recipe commands | Offline plan mode (no auth) |

Search Query Expressions (`--query`)

14 entity search commands accept --query <expression> for human-readable filtering using Jaz search operators. Supported: invoices, bills, customer-credit-notes, supplier-credit-notes, journals, cashflow, bank records, contacts, items, capsules, fixed-assets, subscriptions (scheduled), accounts, tax-profiles.

# Status
clio invoices search --query "status:unpaid"
clio invoices search --query "status:unpaid AND $500+"
clio invoices search --query "(status:paid OR status:partial) AND date:this month"

# Amounts — bare $, ranges, suffixes (k=1k, m=1M, b=1B)
clio invoices search --query '$100-500'
clio invoices search --query 'amount:>2m'
clio invoices search --query 'amount:4k-5k'

# Absolute value — for mixed-sign fields (cashflow, journals)
clio cashflow search --query 'abs:1000+'

# Dates
clio invoices search --query "date:-30d"            # last 30 days
clio invoices search --query "due:overdue"          # past due + unpaid/partial
clio invoices search --query "date:jan-mar 2025"
clio invoices search --query "date:this quarter"
clio invoices search --query "submitted:last week"
clio invoices search --query "lastpayment:-7d"

# String fields
clio invoices search --query "customer:acme AND ref:INV-*"
clio invoices search --query 'ref:/INV-\d{8}/'     # regex
clio invoices search --query '=ref:INV-20260314'   # exact match (= prefix)
clio contacts search --query "customer:yes"
clio contacts search --query 'name:"Sakura Trading"'

# Blank / empty
clio invoices search --query "ref:blank"
clio invoices search --query "tag:!blank"

# Negation (never use - for negation)
clio invoices search --query "!status:void"
clio invoices search --query "NOT (status:paid OR status:void)"

# Multi-value (comma = OR)
clio invoices search --query "status:unpaid,partial"
clio invoices search --query "currency:SGD,USD,EUR"

# Combine --query with named flags (named flags win on conflict)
clio invoices search --query "date:this year" --status UNPAID

# Inline sort
clio invoices search --query "status:unpaid sort:amount:desc" --limit 10

Gotchas:

Bad enum values (e.g. --query "status:BADVALUE") return empty results silently — no error.
Unknown field names return an error (query_not_understood).
Unsupported entities have no --query flag (background-jobs, tags, contact-groups, etc.).
Never use - for negation — it means negative amount (e.g. $-500 = amount is -500). Use ! or NOT.

See references/search-reference.md for the full syntax spec.

Body Input

Create/update commands accept payloads three ways (priority order):

--input <file> — read JSON from a file
Stdin pipe — echo '{"contact":...}' | clio invoices create
CLI flags — --contact "Acme" --date 2026-01-15 --lines '[...]'

When --input or stdin provides a body, CLI flags are ignored.

Bulk-upsert: FLAT vs NESTED variants

For invoices and bills, there are TWO bulk-upsert commands per entity:

FLAT (clio invoices bulk-upsert / clio bills bulk-upsert) — ONE line per row. Each row carries itemDescription + totalAmount + invoiceAccountResourceId (or billAccountResourceId) at the top level. Use for CSV-like imports where each row = one transaction with a single line.
NESTED (clio invoices bulk-upsert-line-items / clio bills bulk-upsert-line-items) — multi-line per row. Each row carries nested lineItems[] with per-line itemDescription + quantity + unitPrice + accountResourceId. Use when each transaction needs multiple lines.

Sending lineItems[] to the FLAT endpoint silently ignores them and creates a $0 transaction. Sending the FLAT shape to the NESTED endpoint creates an empty lineItems array and 422s. Match the variant to your data shape.

Command Quick Reference

Transactions: invoices, bills, customer-credit-notes, supplier-credit-notes, journals, cash-in, cash-out, cash-transfer, payments, cashflow

Contacts & Configuration: contacts, contact-groups, accounts, items, tags, currencies, currency-rates, tax-profiles, custom-fields, bookmarks, nano-classifiers

Bank & Reconciliation: bank (accounts, get, records, add-records, import, auto-recon), bank-rules

Fixed Assets & Inventory: fixed-assets (alias: fa), inventory (alias: inv)

Subscriptions & Schedulers: subscriptions (alias: subs), schedulers

Reports & Exports: reports (16 report types), exports

AI & Automation: magic (create, status, search, split), quick-fix, capsules, capsule-transaction (alias: ct, 13 recipe types)

Calculators: calc (loan, lease, depreciation, prepaid-expense, deferred-revenue, fx-reval, ecl, provision, fixed-deposit, asset-disposal, accrued-expense, leave-accrual, dividend)

Jobs: jobs (month-end, quarter-end, year-end, bank-recon, gst-vat, payment-run, credit-control, supplier-recon, audit-prep, fa-review, document-collection, statutory-filing) + tools (match, outstanding, ingest, sg-cs, sg-ca)

Organization: org (info), org-users, auth

Introspection: schema (list groups, inspect tools, show params), health (version, connectivity, environment checks)

Utilities: help-center (alias: hc), context, mcp, serve, init, versions, update

See references/command-catalog.md for the full catalog with subcommands and flags.

Offline vs Online

Offline commands (no auth needed): calc, jobs (blueprints only), capsule-transaction --plan, help-center, init, versions, update

Everything else requires authentication (API key).

Error Handling

CLI commands exit with standard codes:

Exit 0 — success
Exit 1 — user error (missing flags, invalid input, validation failure)
Exit 2 — auth error (invalid key, unreachable API)

Error messages go to stderr. When --json is set, the error is still on stderr so stdout stays parseable. Common errors:

# Missing required flag
Error: missing required option(s): --contact, --lines

# Fuzzy resolution ambiguity
Multiple contacts match "Acme":
  Acme Corp Pte Ltd (92%)
  Acme Holdings (87%)
Be more specific, or use the full billingName.

# Auth not configured
No API key configured. Run `clio auth add <key>`, set JAZ_API_KEY, or pass --api-key.

# API validation error (422)
API error 422: lineItems[0].accountResourceId is required when saveAsDraft is false

Draft Validation

Transaction create commands (invoices, bills, customer-credit-notes, supplier-credit-notes, journals) perform client-side draft validation before hitting the API. The validation:

Checks required fields are present (contact, date, at least one line item)
Sanitizes line items (strips unknown fields, normalizes dates)
Prints a draft report showing what will be created
When --finalize is set, validates that every line item has accountResourceId

This catches mistakes before the API call, saving round-trip time and providing clearer error messages.

Capsule-Transaction Recipes

The capsule-transaction (alias: ct) command group is the most powerful CLI feature. Each subcommand:

Runs a financial calculator (same as clio calc)
Creates a capsule to group the transactions
Posts all transactions (invoices, bills, journals) in sequence

Two entry paths:

Full: provide --input (account mapping) or let it auto-resolve from your chart of accounts
Attach: provide --existing-txn <id> to skip the initial transaction and create only the delta (e.g., attach depreciation to an existing purchase bill)

Plan mode (--plan) is offline and shows what accounts are needed and what steps will be created, without making any API calls.

# Plan mode — see what's needed (offline)
clio ct loan --principal 100000 --rate 5 --term 60 --plan

# Execute with auto-resolve (uses fuzzy matching against your chart of accounts)
clio ct loan --principal 100000 --rate 5 --term 60 --start-date 2026-01-01 --ref LOAN-001

# Execute with explicit account mapping
clio ct loan --principal 100000 --rate 5 --term 60 --start-date 2026-01-01 \
  --input account-mapping.json --bank-account "Bank - SGD" --contact "HSBC"

Tips

Pipe JSON to jq: clio invoices list --json | jq '.data[] | {ref: .reference, amount: .totalAmount}'
Export to CSV: clio contacts list --all --format csv > contacts.csv
Multi-org scripts: clio invoices list --org acme-sg --json && clio invoices list --org acme-ph --json
Draft-then-finalize: The CLI defaults to saving as draft (overrides the API default of saveAsDraft: false). Use --finalize to create a finalized transaction immediately. Note: cash entries (cash-in, cash-out) do NOT override — they follow the API default (saveAsDraft: false, i.e. finalized).
Idempotent creates: Use --input with the same JSON to get consistent results. The API dedup guards catch duplicate contacts, items, and accounts.
Check before bulk ops: Always preview with --json | jq length before piping IDs into quick-fix.
Offline calculators for exploration: clio calc commands need no auth -- use them to explore scenarios before committing with clio ct.
Help center for guidance: clio hc "how to reconcile" searches the full Jaz help center locally (hybrid: embeddings + keyword).

See references/common-workflows.md for end-to-end multi-command patterns.

Agent Gotchas (Top 5)

Create returns only {resourceId}. Always get afterward for full data.
Line-item accounts don't fuzzy-resolve. Use UUID or exact name.
Cash entries finalize immediately. Unlike invoices which default to draft.
--offset is page number (0-indexed), not row count.
JAZ_API_KEY env overrides --org. Unset to use profiles.

See references/agent-gotchas.md for the full list of 15 gotchas. See references/output-shapes.md for --json output structures. See references/error-recovery.md for 30+ error patterns with fixes.