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The Walrus CLI is a lightweight client for interacting with a distributed Walrus cluster over TCP. It supports both interactive shell mode and one-off commands.

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Connection Setup

The CLI connects to any node in the cluster via TCP on the client port (default: 9091). The cluster automatically routes requests to the appropriate leader node. 
# Connect to default address (127.0.0.1:9091)
cargo run --bin walrus-cli

# Connect to specific node
cargo run --bin walrus-cli -- --addr 127.0.0.1:9092
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--addr
string
default:"127.0.0.1:9091"
Address of the client listener in the format HOST:PORT

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Wire Format

The CLI uses a simple length-prefixed text protocol over TCP: 
[4 bytes: length (little-endian)] [UTF-8 command]

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Request Structure

  1. Length prefix: 4 bytes (u32) in little-endian byte order representing the command length
  2. Command payload: UTF-8 encoded command string

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Response Structure

  1. Length prefix: 4 bytes (u32) in little-endian byte order representing the response length
  2. Response payload: UTF-8 encoded response string

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Response Types

  • OK - Success with no payload
  • OK [payload] - Success with data payload
  • EMPTY - No data available (GET command only)
  • ERR <message> - Error with descriptive message

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Frame Limits

  • Minimum frame length: 1 byte
  • Maximum frame length: 64 KB (65,536 bytes)
  • Invalid frame lengths return ERR invalid frame length

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Usage Modes

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Interactive Shell (REPL)

Start the CLI without a subcommand to enter interactive mode: 
cargo run --bin walrus-cli
The shell provides:
  • Command history
  • Tab completion
  • Exit with exit, quit, q, or Ctrl+C
  • Direct command input without prefixes
🦭 > REGISTER logs
OK
🦭 > PUT logs "hello world"
OK
🦭 > GET logs
hello world
🦭 > exit

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One-off Commands

Execute single commands using subcommands: 
# Register a topic
cargo run --bin walrus-cli -- register logs

# Append data
cargo run --bin walrus-cli -- put logs "hello world"

# Read data
cargo run --bin walrus-cli -- get logs

# Get topic state
cargo run --bin walrus-cli -- state logs

# Get metrics
cargo run --bin walrus-cli -- metrics

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Available Commands

The CLI supports five commands:
  • REGISTER - Create a topic if it doesn’t exist
  • PUT - Append data to a topic
  • GET - Read the next entry from a topic
  • STATE - Get topic metadata as JSON
  • METRICS - Get Raft metrics as JSON

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Error Handling

  • Connection failures return context about the connection attempt
  • Invalid UTF-8 encoding returns ERR invalid utf-8
  • Unknown commands return ERR unknown command
  • Command-specific errors include descriptive messages
  • Non-zero exit codes for failures in one-off mode

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Cluster Integration

  • Connect to any node in the cluster
  • Non-leader nodes automatically forward requests to the leader
  • Sealed segments can be read from any replica
  • Transparent failover during leadership changes

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