# Overview (/sling-cli)



`sling` is the primary interface to the StarSling platform for agents and humans. The questions you ask most often are each a single command: [why](/sling-cli/commands/analyze#sling-why) a job failed, where the [time](/sling-cli/commands/analyze#sling-time) went, and what sits at the [top](/sling-cli/commands/analyze#sling-top) of your spend.

```console copy="sling time"
$ sling time 93165914090
Job Name: Lint, typecheck, test & spell · Wall-Clock: 58s · Queue-Wait: 2s

  PHASES                           TIME %-SHARE  TIMELINE
  provision                        4.0s   7.14%  ██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
  checkout+patch                   2.0s   3.57%  ░░█░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
  steps                           46.0s  82.14%  ░░░███████████████████░░
    Set up Bun                     1.0s          ░░░█░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
    Set up mise tools              2.0s          ░░░█░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
    Install dependencies           1.0s          ░░░░█░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
    Lint (Biome)                   2.0s          ░░░░█░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
    Lint shell (shellcheck)       14.0s          ░░░░░██████░░░░░░░░░░░░░
    Lint Dockerfiles (hadolint)    0.0s          ░░░░░░░░░░░█░░░░░░░░░░░░
  ▸ Typecheck                     18.0s          ░░░░░░░░░░░████████░░░░░
    Test                           7.0s          ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░███░░
    Catalog drift                  1.0s          ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░█░
    Spell (typos)                  0.0s          ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░█░
  teardown                         4.0s   7.14%  ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░██
```

<Callout type="info">
  sling CLI is now in private beta.
</Callout>

## The problem it solves

AI agents working inside CI jobs on StarSling runners, and the humans supervising them, have no first-class way to answer the questions CI work actually consists of: why did this job fail, where does the wall-clock go, what is burning our runner minutes, show me the logs that matter.

Those answers otherwise live behind the GitHub UI (hostile to agents), raw APIs (no diagnosis, no aggregation), and dashboards (exports, not interfaces). Agents end up screen-scraping logs into their context windows, guessing at failure causes, and unable to branch on outcomes without parsing prose. Humans get no leverage from the telemetry StarSling already collects.

`sling` makes each of those one command:

* [`sling why`](/sling-cli/commands/analyze#sling-why) classifies why a job failed, with evidence and a fix to run.
* [`sling logs`](/sling-cli/commands/inspect#sling-logs) filters server-side, returning only the logs that matter.
* [`sling time`](/sling-cli/commands/analyze#sling-time) decomposes where the time went, phase by phase.
* [`sling top`](/sling-cli/commands/analyze#sling-top) ranks what sits at the top of your spend.
* [`sling usage`](/sling-cli/commands/analyze#sling-usage) attributes runner minutes and cost, grouped how you ask.
* [`sling bill`](/sling-cli/commands/billing#sling-bill) is a read-only budget check for the open period.

## What you can do with it

<Cards>
  <Card title="Authentication and setup" href="/sling-cli/commands/auth" description="login, logout, whoami, doctor, and picking a default org." />

  <Card title="Inspecting CI" href="/sling-cli/commands/inspect" description="resolve, runs, jobs, and server-side filtered logs." />

  <Card title="Analyzing CI" href="/sling-cli/commands/analyze" description="usage, top, time, why, and the runner-label catalog." />

  <Card title="Billing" href="/sling-cli/commands/billing" description="Read-only budget snapshots and prior invoices." />
</Cards>

## Getting started

<Cards>
  <Card title="Installation" href="/sling-cli/installation" description="Get the binary on your PATH, sign in, and verify your setup." />

  <Card title="Configuration" href="/sling-cli/configuration" description="Environment variables and the full exit-code table." />
</Cards>