Perplexity CLI Skill

Overview

Perplexity CLI is a command-line interface for Perplexity AI that allows AI-powered searches directly from the terminal with support for multiple models, streaming output, and file attachments.

Prerequisites

Verify installation

perplexity --help

Quick Reference

Command Description

perplexity "query" --mode pro --json

Search with pro mode and JSON output

Mode Flag Description

pro --mode pro

Deep search with reasoning (default)

Common Operations

Basic Query

perplexity "What is quantum computing?" --mode pro --json

Read Query from File, Save Response

perplexity -f question.md -o answer.md --mode pro --json

Query with Sources

perplexity "Climate research" --sources web,scholar --mode pro --json

All Flags

Flag Short Description

--json

Output in JSON format (REQUIRED for scripts)

--mode

Search mode

--sources

-s

Sources: web,scholar,social

--language

-l

Response language (e.g., en-US, pt-BR)

--file

-f

Read query from file

--output

-o

Save response to file

Best Practices

• ALWAYS use --mode pro --json for all queries (pro mode with JSON output)

• DO NOT use --model flag - model is configured by the user in config

• Use -f and -o flags for batch processing

Piping and Scripting

Pipe query from stdin (JSON output)

echo "What is Go?" | perplexity --mode pro --json

Use in scripts (JSON output REQUIRED)

RESPONSE=$(perplexity "Quick answer" --mode pro --json 2>/dev/null)

Batch processing (JSON output)

cat questions.txt | while read q; do perplexity "$q" --mode pro -o "answers/$(echo $q | md5sum | cut -c1-8).md" --json done