Luca CLI Guide

The Luca CLI is your command-line interface to interact with your dedicated AI research assistant. It provides a non-intrusive terminal experience while giving you complete control.

Installation

Prerequisites

Python 3.7 or higher
pip package manager
Active Luca account with API key

Install via pip

Install Luca CLIbash

pip install luca-cli

Verify Installation

Check versionbash

luca --version

This should display the version number if installation was successful.

Setup & Configuration

Important

You need an API key from your Luca dashboard before you can use the CLI.Create one here →

Step 1: Get Your API Key

1. Log in to your Luca dashboard
2. Navigate to the API Keys section
3. Click "Create New API Key"
4. Copy the generated key

Step 2: Configure the CLI

Run setup commandbash

luca setup

This will prompt you to enter your API key and configure the CLI.

Step 3: Initialize Your Agent

Initialize agentbash

luca init

This sets up your personal research agent and establishes the connection.

Alternative: Environment Variable

Using environment variablebash

export LUCA_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
luca init

You can also set your API key as an environment variable.

Command Reference

Setup Commands

luca setupRequired

Configure your API key and initial settings.

luca initRequired

Initialize your research agent and knowledge base.

Research Commands

luca "how to improve the diffusibility of a latent space learned by a variational autoencoder?"

Ask your research agent a question or generate hypotheses and validate ideas.

luca "research papers on reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards"

We built a custom search engine specifically for finding academic literature.

luca "analyze and generate a report of all the experiments in the `mech_interp` project."

Analyze data files, experiments, or documents.

Utility Commands

luca status

Check the status of your agent and connection.

luca history

View your recent queries and research history.

luca help

Display help information and available commands.

Usage Examples

Basic Research Query

Research query examplebash

luca "what are the latest developments in quantum computing?"

# Response will include:
# - Recent papers and research
# - Key findings and breakthroughs
# - Relevant researchers and institutions

Literature Search

Literature search examplebash

luca "machine learning interpretability"

# This will:
# - Search academic research paper index that we built ourselves.
# - Find relevant papers
# - Summarize the problem statement, proposed approach and compare with current methods
# - Build your knowledge base

Data Analysis

Data analysis examplebash

luca "analyze the data in experiment_results.csv"

# Luca will:
# - Parse your data
# - Identify patterns and trends
# - Perform statistical analyses
# - Generate hypotheses

Multi-step Research Workflow

Complete workflow examplebash

# 1. Search for background information
luca "CRISPR gene editing ethics"

# 2. Ask specific questions
luca "what are the main ethical concerns with CRISPR?"

# 3. Analyze related documents
luca "analyze the data in ethics_paper.pdf"

# 4. Accelerate your research progress
luca "suggest ways to improve current processes to adhere to current ethical guidelines"

Troubleshooting

Command not found: luca

This usually means the CLI wasn't installed properly or isn't in your PATH.

# Reinstall the CLI
pip install --upgrade luca-cli

# Or install with user flag
pip install --user luca-cli

Authentication failed

Your API key might be invalid or expired.

# Reconfigure your API key
luca setup

# Or export the API key to an environment variable
export LUCA_API_KEY=<your_api_key_here> && luca init

Connection timeout

Your agent might be starting up or there could be network issues.

# Try reinitializing
luca init

Permission denied errors

You might need to install with different permissions.

# Install for current user only
pip install --user luca-cli

# Or use virtual environment
python -m venv luca-env
source luca-env/bin/activate  # On Windows: luca-env\Scripts\activate
pip install luca-cli

Need more help? Contact support

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