Terminal Commands Reference

Shell commands for managing the Zwischen installation. These are run in your terminal, not inside Claude Code.

Command	Description
zwischen install	Interactive setup wizard
zwischen install --dry-run	Preview changes without writing anything
zwischen install --print	Print hook and MCP config for manual application
zwischen install --update	Re-wire hooks, MCP, and skills without running the wizard
zwischen update	Update the package and restart the daemon
zwischen uninstall	Remove Zwischen from Claude Code
zwischen uninstall --purge	Also remove ~/.zwischen/settings.yaml
zwischen auth	Configure provider API keys interactively
zwischen providers	Show providers with usable credentials
zwischen oauth	Authenticate with a model provider via OAuth
zwischen restart	Restart the daemon

zwischen install

Runs the interactive setup wizard. Prompts for your Zwischen API key, model selection, and provider API key. Installs hooks into Claude Code settings, registers the MCP server, and installs the /z skill.

--dry-run – Shows what would be changed without writing anything. Use this to preview before committing.

--print – Prints the hook and MCP configuration as JSON for manual application. Useful if you want to integrate Zwischen into an existing Claude Code config without the wizard touching your files.

--update – Re-runs the hook, MCP, and skill installation without prompting for API keys or model selection. Use this after updating the package to ensure your Claude Code wiring matches the latest version.

zwischen update

Updates the zwischen package to the latest version from PyPI and restarts the daemon. Automatically detects whether Zwischen was installed with pipx or pip and uses the matching upgrade path. Equivalent to:

pipx upgrade zwischen   # or: pip install --upgrade zwischen
zwischen install --update
zwischen restart

zwischen uninstall

Removes all Zwischen hooks from Claude Code settings, unregisters the MCP server, and removes the /z skill. Preserves ~/.zwischen/settings.yaml.

--purge – Also deletes ~/.zwischen/settings.yaml.

zwischen auth

Interactive terminal credential setup for model providers. Supports Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and DeepSeek.

zwischen auth                    # Show status, then pick a provider
zwischen auth --provider google  # Configure Google directly

For OpenAI, you're prompted to choose between API key and OAuth. Selecting OAuth runs the same flow as zwischen oauth.

API keys are persisted as OS environment variables (Windows registry on Windows, managed shell files on macOS/Linux). Keys are not stored in ~/.zwischen/settings.yaml. zwischen auth only creates new variables; it won't overwrite an existing environment variable.

zwischen providers

Show which providers have usable credentials without revealing secrets.

zwischen providers

Output is space-separated provider:auth_mode pairs, e.g.:

anthropic:api_key google:api_key openai:oauth

Used by the /z model skill internally to filter the model picker, but also useful for manual diagnostics.

zwischen oauth

Starts the OAuth authentication flow for a model provider. Currently supported for OpenAI only – authenticates via your ChatGPT account.

zwischen restart

Restarts the local Zwischen daemon. The daemon will be re-started automatically on the next Claude Code session if it's not running.