A Codex-Style Multi-Agent CLI for Automated Physics Experiment Report Writing

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A codex-style, multi-agent command-line tool for automatically writing physics-experiment reports in LaTeX. It is a Rust rewrite of the AutoReport desktop app — no GUI, no MCP, no image recognition. The terminal is the interface; the working directory is the project.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AutoReportCLI  <workspace>   anthropic/claude-…   focused: Main   │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ▸ Main                                                          │
│ I'll start with theory, then data analysis…                     │
│   ⚒ Theory · write_file(…/formulas.md)                          │
│     {"success": true}                                           │
│ ▸ Data Analysis                                                 │
│ analyzing power-curve data…                                     │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  message to Data Analysis                                       │
└ Tab: switch agent   Enter: send   ↑/↓: scroll   /help   Ctrl+C ┘

Overview

AutoReportCLI keeps the multi-agent workflow of AutoReport, but rebuilds it as a terminal-first tool in Rust. You work inside an experiment folder, feed in raw data and references, and coordinate five agents from a single codex-style TUI.

Features

Core Capabilities

• Multi-Agent Collaboration — Main, Theory, Data Analysis, Plotting, and Report agents work on the same experiment with separate responsibilities
• Project-Oriented Workspace — each run operates on the current folder and creates the standard report layout automatically
• Provider Flexibility — supports Anthropic and OpenAI-compatible providers, with config-file, env-var, and first-run interactive setup
• Built-In Defaults — ships bundled report templates and default skills so a fresh workspace can run immediately

TUI Experience

• Codex-Style Interface — full-screen terminal UI with agent panes, streaming output, markdown rendering, and keyboard-first navigation
• Persistent Agent Sessions — each agent keeps its own conversation history and resumes on the next launch
• @ File Mentions — fuzzy-search workspace files and inject them into prompts directly from the input box
• Slash Commands — /agents, /switch, /config, /models, /clear, /compact, /new, /manifest, /index, /help

Quick Start

Prerequisites: Rust 1.85+, a TeX distribution, and at least one LLM provider API key.

Build from source:

git clone <this-repo> AutoReportCLI && cd AutoReportCLI
cargo build --release

Install globally if you want autoreport available from any directory:

cargo install --path autoreport-rs/cli

On Linux, install the companion sandbox launcher into the same Cargo bin directory as well. Restricted exec commands fail closed if it is absent:

cargo install --path autoreport-rs/linux-sandbox

Or run the built binary directly:

./target/release/autoreport

Create a project folder and start:

mkdir ~/my-experiment && cd ~/my-experiment
autoreport

If autoreport is not in your PATH, use the binary path instead:

/path/to/AutoReportCLI/target/release/autoreport

On first launch, AutoReportCLI configures the API and models, asks you to confirm the workspace, then creates the workspace folders and opens the TUI. Built-in templates and synced presets/skills live in the global AutoReport home.

Configuration

Configure a provider in any of these ways:

• Set an API key environment variable such as ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, DEEPSEEK_API_KEY, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, or GEMINI_API_KEY
• Copy autoreport.config.example.toml to $AUTOREPORT_HOME/config.toml (default: ~/.autoreport/config.toml), or use /config. AUTOREPORT_HOME can point to another global AutoReport home.
• Use /config to add API entries from presets (presets are additive, so one provider kind can have multiple API keys) and optionally override each entry's alias, then use /models to bind main and sub-agent model names only to configured API entries. First launch opens these pages in that order when needed.
• Let the first-run full-screen setup page guide you through provider selection and saving

Useful CLI flags:

• --workspace <dir> to run on a different project folder
• --no-sync to skip startup sync and use cache only
• --sync-presets to force a refresh and exit
• -v for verbose logs

Workspace Layout

.
├── Data/            raw data and processed results
├── References/      papers, images, templates, custom skills
├── Theory/          theory agent output
├── Plots/           plotting figures (Plots/Fig) and scripts (Plots/Scripts)
├── Tex/             LaTeX sources and compiled PDF
├── Outline/         main agent planning output
└── (no AutoReport metadata files; program state lives in ~/.autoreport/)

Global program state follows Codex's home-directory model:

~/.autoreport/
├── config.toml
├── auth.json         provider credentials (mode 0600 where supported)
├── history.jsonl                       append-only conversation history
├── skills/          global skills and synced skills
├── external/        synced provider presets
├── templates/       bundled report templates
├── agents/          global prompt overrides
└── workspaces/<id>/                    manifests, rules, and workspace metadata

Development

The Rust source follows Codex's workspace layout rather than a monolithic src/ tree:

autoreport-rs/
├── cli/          executable entry point
├── core/         configuration, providers, agents, skills, and domain types
├── protocol/     shared policy and sandbox protocol types
├── rollout/      Codex-compatible session persistence
├── runtime/      persistent agent loops and orchestration
├── sandboxing/   cross-platform execution policy
├── tools/        tool definitions and local handlers
├── tui/          terminal UI, rendering, and IDE context
└── utils/        absolute-path and path-URI crates

Run tests with:

cargo test

Build an npm package with a native binary for the current Rust target:

npm run build:npm
(cd autoreport-cli && npm pack --dry-run)

For implementation status and parity notes, see docs/PARITY.md.