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Documentation Index

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Non-interactive mode (-p / --print) runs Claude Code as a single-shot command: send a prompt, get a response, exit. There is no REPL, no UI, and no user interaction. This makes it suitable for shell pipelines, CI/CD jobs, and SDK-style integrations.
The workspace trust dialog is skipped when Claude is run with -p. Only use this flag in directories you trust.

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Basic usage

claude -p "your prompt here"
Claude processes the prompt, prints the response to stdout, and exits. By default the output is plain text. 
# Ask a question
claude -p "what does the --dry-run flag do in rsync?"

# Ask about a specific file
claude -p "summarise the public API of src/auth/token.ts"

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Reading from stdin

When stdin is not a TTY, Claude Code reads it and appends it to the prompt. This lets you pipe file contents, command output, or any text directly into a prompt. 
# Explain a file
cat src/utils/retry.ts | claude -p "explain this code"

# Summarise a diff
git diff HEAD~1 | claude -p "write a concise commit message for this diff"

# Analyse test failures
npm test 2>&1 | claude -p "identify the root cause of these test failures"
If no stdin data arrives within 3 seconds, Claude Code proceeds without it and prints a warning to stderr. To skip stdin explicitly, redirect from /dev/null: claude -p "prompt" < /dev/null.

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Output formats

Use --output-format to control how the response is printed. This flag only works with --print.
Plain text — Claude’s response as a string, suitable for human reading or piping into other tools.
claude -p "list the files changed in HEAD" --output-format text

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Input format

Use --input-format to describe the shape of data arriving on stdin.
ValueDescription
text (default)Plain text read from stdin and appended to the prompt
stream-jsonA newline-delimited stream of JSON messages (SDK control protocol)
stream-json input is used for SDK integrations where the orchestrating process sends structured messages rather than raw text.

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Limiting agentic turns

By default Claude Code will run as many tool-use turns as needed to complete the task. Use --max-turns to set a hard upper bound: 
# Stop after at most 5 tool-use turns
claude -p "fix all lint errors" --max-turns 5
This is useful in CI pipelines where you want a safety limit on how much work Claude can do autonomously.

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Exit codes

CodeMeaning
0Claude finished successfully
1An error occurred (API error, invalid flags, etc.)
Scripts should check the exit code before consuming stdout.

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Using in scripts and CI/CD pipelines

#!/bin/bash
set -e

# Generate a PR description from the current diff
description=$(git diff main | claude -p "write a GitHub pull request description for this diff")

# Create the PR using the generated description
gh pr create --title "automated changes" --body "$description"
Set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (or configure another auth method) before running Claude Code in CI. The interactive OAuth flow is not available in non-interactive mode.

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Environment variables

Claude Code inherits environment variables from the calling shell. Variables that affect behaviour in non-interactive mode include:
VariableEffect
ANTHROPIC_API_KEYAPI key for authentication
CLAUDE_CODE_ENTRYPOINTIdentifies the caller context (e.g. sdk-ts, sdk-py, github-action)
GITHUB_ACTIONSWhen set to true, Claude Code identifies the client type as github-action

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SDK usage pattern

The Claude Code CLI can be driven programmatically from the official SDKs. The SDK launches Claude Code as a subprocess with --output-format stream-json and --input-format stream-json, exchanging structured JSON messages over stdio. 
# Equivalent to what the SDK does internally
claude -p "task description" \
  --output-format stream-json \
  --input-format stream-json
When using the SDK you do not need to construct these flags manually — the SDK handles the subprocess lifecycle and message parsing for you.

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Complete flag reference for non-interactive mode

FlagDescription
-p, --printEnable non-interactive mode
--output-format <format>text (default), json, or stream-json
--input-format <format>text (default) or stream-json
--max-turns <n>Maximum number of agentic turns
--model <model>Model to use (alias or full name)
--allowed-tools <tools...>Comma or space-separated list of tools to allow
--disallowed-tools <tools...>Comma or space-separated list of tools to deny
--system-prompt <prompt>Override the system prompt
--append-system-prompt <prompt>Append text to the default system prompt
--add-dir <directories...>Additional directories to allow tool access to
--no-session-persistenceDisable saving the session to disk
-c, --continueContinue the most recent conversation
-r, --resume [session-id]Resume a specific session by ID

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