Company-Character: Give Your Organization a Terminal Voice

In a world full of slick web dashboards and AI chatbots, sometimes the most powerful interface is still the one staring back at you in the terminal.

Company-Character is a system that gives your organization its own voice — right in the command line.

Point it at your GitHub organization, and it builds a branded CLI companion that truly knows your tools, your current status, your roadmap, and most importantly — how your brand speaks.

It works offline by default, optionally taps into Claude for more natural responses, and ships as a single compiled knowledge file. No database. No server. Just pure, controllable knowledge you own.

How It Works

Three components work together seamlessly:

company-state/     ← Content & personality (what it knows + how it speaks)
      +
GitHub org         ← Your repos (scanned via API)
      ↓
cc-admin           ← Private build tool
      ↓
company-cli        ← The public CLI your team and users install
  • company-state/ is a simple folder of plain-text files containing your section mappings, brand personality, NOW.md, roadmap, and more. You edit these directly or through the admin tools.
  • cc-admin is your internal command-line tool. It scans your GitHub org, parses READMEs according to your rules, applies overrides, and compiles everything into a single dist/knowledge.json file.
  • company-cli is the distributable CLI. It reads the compiled knowledge and responds in your brand’s voice. You simply rename the entry point in pyproject.toml (e.g. heybabb, hey-acme, askwidget).

Quick Start

Getting started is surprisingly straightforward:

cd cc-admin
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

# Scaffold your company-state folder
cc-admin init

The init command will prompt you for your GitHub org name, brand name, and topic prefix, then generate all the necessary files and configuration.

GitHub Topics – Smart Repo Discovery

Use GitHub topics to control what gets included and how deeply it’s scanned:

  • {prefix}-tool → Full deep scan (products and tools)
  • {prefix}-featured → Lead with these when listing tools
  • {prefix}-vision → Strategic future work (not yet a product)
  • {prefix}-internal → Infrastructure only — brief mention

Replace {prefix} with whatever you set during initialization.

README Conventions

For best results, add consistent section headers to your repositories (fully configurable):

## What is it?
## The Problem
## How it Works
## Current Status
## The Vision
## Industry Context

The scanner automatically turns these into structured knowledge. Need different headers? Just edit company-state/section-map.yml or use the admin commands to customize.

Powerful Admin Commands

cc-admin gives you full control over your knowledge base:

cc-admin init                    # Scaffold a new company-state
cc-admin scan                    # Scan GitHub org and parse repos
cc-admin build                   # Compile knowledge.json
cc-admin diff                    # Preview changes before publishing
cc-admin publish                 # Push dist/ to company-cli
cc-admin preview "query"         # Test a question before shipping
cc-admin audit                   # Show build log

Advanced curation tools include:

  • cc-admin qa — Manage hand-crafted Q&A pairs
  • cc-admin override — Curate or suppress information per tool
  • cc-admin lore — Inject company history and culture
  • cc-admin announce — Pin announcements to the now command
  • cc-admin alias — Create alternate names and cross-references
  • cc-admin persona — Customize tone and add easter eggs

What Users See: company-cli Commands

Once installed and renamed to your brand, users get clean, intuitive commands:

companycli                    # Friendly greeting
companycli tools              # List all indexed tools
companycli tool <name>        # Deep dive on a specific tool
companycli now                # What the team is working on right now
companycli vision             # Roadmap and strategic direction
companycli version            # Build and knowledge version info
companycli ask "<question>"   # Natural language (offline)
companycli ask --ai "<question>"  # Claude-powered responses
companycli sync               # Refresh latest GitHub signals

AI Mode (Optional)

For more fluid conversations, use --ai:

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_key_here
companycli ask --ai "What makes your approach different?"

The entire knowledge base is passed as context, so responses stay grounded in your actual content and brand voice.

Overrides & Curation

You don’t have to change your READMEs to control what the CLI says. Use overrides:

cc-admin override set bitpads status "Stable. Ships next week."
cc-admin override suppress bitpads context
cc-admin override embargo bitpads vision --until 2026-09-01
cc-admin override tone bitpads technical

This gives you fine-grained control without polluting your public repositories.

Knowledge Enrichment Features

Beyond README parsing, you can enrich the assistant with:

  • Q&A pairs — Pre-written answers to common questions
  • Lore — Company history, mission, and culture
  • Announcements — Time-sensitive updates
  • Aliases & cross-references — Help users find tools by different names
  • Easter eggs — Fun personality moments triggered by specific inputs

Open Source & Ready to Fork

company-character is a reference implementation, not a one-size-fits-all product.

It’s intentionally generic — no hardcoded organization names or brand text. Everything is driven by your configuration and company-state/ folder.

Fork it, rename it, and build your own branded CLI companion for your team, your open-source community, or your customers.

The live reference deployment is the Babb CLI (heybabb), built by Babb Works.

Want your organization to have a voice in the terminal?

Try the reference implementation today and start building your own company-character system.

Your tools deserve to speak with personality. Your team deserves an assistant that actually knows what’s going on.

Welcome to the age of the branded terminal companion.