---
license: apache-2.0
task_categories:
  - text-generation
language:
  - en
tags:
  - benchmark
  - ai-agents
  - cli
  - tool-use
  - evaluation
pretty_name: "CLI-Bench"
size_categories:
  - n<1K
---

# CLI-Bench: Benchmarking AI Agents on CLI Tool Orchestration

CLI-Bench is a benchmark for evaluating the ability of AI agents (e.g., LLM-based coding assistants) to use command-line interface tools to accomplish real-world developer tasks. Unlike existing benchmarks that focus on code generation or isolated API calls, CLI-Bench tests whether agents can **orchestrate multiple CLI tools** end-to-end across realistic workflows spanning project management, DevOps, communication, and data operations.

## Overview

| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| **Tasks** | 40 |
| **Categories** | 6 (devops, project_mgmt, communication, data_ops, custom_cli, composite) |
| **Tool Adapters** | 12 (7 real-world + 5 fictional) |
| **Difficulty** | 20 easy, 10 medium, 10 hard |
| **Format** | YAML task definitions with declarative initial/expected state |

## Task Categories

- **devops**: Infrastructure and deployment operations (CI/CD, monitoring, alerts)
- **project_mgmt**: Issue tracking, sprint management, task coordination across platforms
- **communication**: Messaging, notifications, channel management via Slack and email
- **data_ops**: Data pipeline construction, ETL operations, report generation
- **custom_cli**: Tasks using fictional CLIs that cannot be memorized from training data
- **composite**: Multi-tool workflows requiring coordination across 2-3 tools in sequence

## Tool Adapters

### Real-World Tools (7)
| Tool | Domain |
|---|---|
| `gh` | GitHub CLI (issues, PRs, repos, actions) |
| `slack` | Slack CLI (messages, channels, users) |
| `linear` | Linear CLI (issues, projects, cycles) |
| `notion` | Notion CLI (pages, databases, blocks) |
| `google` | Google Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Drive) |
| `jira` | Jira CLI (issues, sprints, boards) |
| `microsoft` | Microsoft 365 (Teams, Outlook, OneDrive) |

### Fictional Tools (5) — Memorization-Proof
| Tool | Domain |
|---|---|
| `kforge` | Artifact registry and deployment management |
| `flowctl` | Workflow engine with approval gates |
| `meshctl` | Service mesh topology and traffic control |
| `datapipe` | Declarative ETL pipeline builder |
| `alertmgr` | Alert routing, escalation, and incident management |

Fictional tools are designed so that agents **cannot rely on memorized CLI syntax** from pre-training. Agents must read the provided tool adapter specifications and reason about correct usage from first principles.

## Task Format

Each task is a YAML file containing:

```yaml
id: cb-001
title: "List open issues in a GitHub repo"
difficulty: easy
category: project_mgmt
description: |
  Natural language description of the task objective.
tools_provided:
  - gh
initial_state:
  gh:
    repos:
      acme-corp/web-platform:
        issues:
          - number: 42
            title: "Fix login redirect loop"
            state: open
            assignee: alice
expected_state:
  gh:
    command_history:
      - pattern: "gh issue list.*--repo acme-corp/web-platform.*--state open"
    output_contains:
      - "42"
scoring:
  outcome: 0.6
  efficiency: 0.2
  recovery: 0.2
```

- **initial_state**: The simulated environment state before the agent acts.
- **expected_state**: Declarative assertions on command patterns, state mutations, and expected outputs.
- **scoring**: Per-task weight overrides for the three evaluation dimensions.

## Evaluation Metrics

CLI-Bench scores agents along three dimensions:

| Metric | Weight (default) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| **Outcome** | 0.6 | Did the agent achieve the desired end state? Verified via declarative state assertions. |
| **Efficiency** | 0.2 | Did the agent use a reasonable number of commands? Penalizes excessive retries or unnecessary exploration. |
| **Recovery** | 0.2 | Did the agent handle errors or unexpected states gracefully? Tests resilience to failed commands and ambiguous outputs. |

The aggregate score per task is a weighted sum. The benchmark also reports **pass^k** (the fraction of tasks solved within *k* attempts), providing a measure of reliability across repeated runs.

## Difficulty Levels

- **Easy (20 tasks)**: Single-tool, single-command operations with straightforward state assertions.
- **Medium (10 tasks)**: Single-tool multi-step workflows or tasks requiring conditional logic.
- **Hard (10 tasks)**: Multi-tool composite workflows requiring sequential orchestration, error recovery, and cross-tool state propagation.

## Usage

### With the `datasets` library

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

dataset = load_dataset("ChengyiX/CLI-Bench")
```

### Loading YAMLs directly

```python
import yaml
from pathlib import Path

tasks = []
for task_file in sorted(Path("data/tasks").glob("cb-*.yaml")):
    with open(task_file) as f:
        tasks.append(yaml.safe_load(f))

print(f"Loaded {len(tasks)} tasks")
print(f"Categories: {set(t['category'] for t in tasks)}")
```

### Loading tool adapter specifications

```python
import yaml
from pathlib import Path

adapters = {}
for adapter_file in Path("tool_adapters").glob("*.yaml"):
    with open(adapter_file) as f:
        adapter = yaml.safe_load(f)
        adapters[adapter_file.stem] = adapter

print(f"Loaded {len(adapters)} tool adapters")
```

## Repository Structure

```
data/
  metadata.yaml          # Benchmark metadata and configuration
  tasks/
    cb-001.yaml          # Individual task definitions
    cb-002.yaml
    ...
    cb-040.yaml
tool_adapters/
    gh.yaml              # GitHub CLI adapter spec
    slack.yaml           # Slack CLI adapter spec
    ...
    kforge.yaml          # Fictional: artifact management
    flowctl.yaml         # Fictional: workflow engine
    meshctl.yaml         # Fictional: service mesh
    datapipe.yaml        # Fictional: ETL pipelines
    alertmgr.yaml        # Fictional: alert management
```

## Citation

```bibtex
@misc{cli-bench-2026,
  title={CLI-Bench: Benchmarking AI Agents on Command-Line Tool Orchestration},
  author={Chengyi Xu},
  year={2026},
  url={https://github.com/minervacap2022/CLI-Bench}
}
```

## Links

- **GitHub**: [https://github.com/minervacap2022/CLI-Bench](https://github.com/minervacap2022/CLI-Bench)
- **License**: Apache 2.0