KSCM Command Line Interface

Overview

KSCM is the command line client for Kimura SCM. It is intended to be the primary interface for developers and automation to interact with Kimura servers from a terminal. Use it for day-to-day workspace operations and to script repeatable flows in CI/CD.

After KimuraSCM is installed, the kscm executable is available from any terminal. Run kscm followed by a command and its options to use the CLI.

KSCM can also run as a long-lived process in four integration modes:

• host-workspace, a legacy long-lived integration mode introduced before MCP, originally to support Unreal Engine plugin communication with KSCM.
• host-server, which hosts a Kimura server instance directly from kscm.
• host-file-server, which hosts a standalone Kimura file server instance directly from kscm.
• mcp, which exposes KSCM commands as MCP tools for clients that support the Model Context Protocol.

These modes are long-lived process modes. host-workspace and mcp are integration hosts for external clients, while host-server and host-file-server run server-side processes directly from kscm.

Primary functionalities

KSCM offers three main sets of functionalities:

• Basic administration and information queries, such as authentication, status, history, and server/workspace inspection.
• Creating, managing, and interacting with workspaces, including setup, sync, updates, change submission, and long-lived workspace hosting for tools and MCP clients.
• Hosting a Kimura server process (host-server) or standalone file server process (host-file-server) for local/dev/server bootstrap scenarios.

MCP Mode (Long-Lived)

When running KSCM as an MCP server (kscm mcp), clients can call the same command set as MCP tools. In this mode, KSCM stays alive across tool calls and keeps the workspace loaded when possible.

For repeated workspace operations against the same workspace and connection context, this avoids reloading the workspace between commands. That reduces setup overhead for multi-step automation and assistant-driven workflows.

For LLM-driven workflows, MCP is the most efficient way to interact with a long-lived workspace because it combines tool-based command invocation with workspace reuse across calls.

host-workspace is still supported, but the long-term direction is to unify around MCP, and host-workspace may eventually be deprecated.

Limitations of the CLI

• Most commands require network connectivity and valid credentials to the target server.
• Only supports operations exposed by the server and configured policies.
• Does not yet provide full parity with Visual Client and Visual Server, but its surface coverage is expanding quickly.
• Provides a CLI surface only; visual diff/merge or UI workflows are external.
• In one-shot CLI usage, workspace commands typically load the workspace first; this is relatively fast but still non-trivial for console workflows.
• In long-lived modes (host-workspace or mcp), workspace reuse depends on staying on the same workspace and compatible connection options.