JSON output

Adding --json to a supported verb swaps the formatted table for machine-readable JSON. These shapes match the MCP server DTOs, so you get the same structures from the CLI and from an AI client. (Which verbs support --json is covered in the CLI overview.)

Write verbs → a result object

Every write verb emits the same small object and runs non-interactively:

{
  "path": "projects/surrogate-model.md",
  "message": "Created projects/surrogate-model.md"
}

path is the vault-relative file written or updated; message is the human-readable line. For the two-file cases (e.g. action add --note), path is the file the verb considers primary.

search --json → an array of hits

Ranked best-first; each hit:

[
  {
    "path": "portfolios/sparse-vs-dense-attention-ood/2026-03-15-chen-2025.md",
    "note_type": "evidence",
    "title": "Chen et al. 2025",
    "snippet": "...4x speedup at 95% accuracy on the OOD split...",
    "score": 1.7
  }
]

A lower score ranks earlier (best match first). No matches → [].

list verbs → arrays of summaries

cdno project list --json

[
  {
    "slug": "surrogate-model",
    "status": "active",
    "state_snippet": "Mesh scaling works; assembly is the bottleneck",
    "top_action": { "text": "Profile the assembly step", "energy": "medium" }
  }
]

• portfolio list → [{ "slug", "question", "evidence_count", "last_updated", "staleness_days" }]
• stewardship list → [{ "slug", "name", "context", "variant", "tracking_count" }]
• action list → [{ "text", "energy", "attached": { "slug", "status" } | null }]

show verbs → a detail object

cdno project show surrogate-model --json   # same shape as a project-list element
cdno portfolio show --portfolio sparse-vs-dense-attention-ood --json

{
  "slug": "sparse-vs-dense-attention-ood",
  "question": "Sparse vs dense attention OOD",
  "created": "2026-03-01",
  "project": "[[projects/surrogate-model]]",
  "evidence": [
    {
      "path": "portfolios/sparse-vs-dense-attention-ood/2026-03-15-chen-2025.md",
      "created": "2026-03-15",
      "source": "Chen et al. 2025",
      "origin": "[[projects/surrogate-model]]"
    }
  ]
}

• project is null when the portfolio isn’t linked to one.
• An evidence entry gains a "kind" field (e.g. "pdf") only for attachment stubs; it’s omitted for plain prose notes.
• stewardship show → { "slug", "name", "context", "variant", "body_markdown" }.

Casing

Enumerations serialise in their canonical lowercase/kebab form, matching the MCP DTOs: status → active/parked/completed, energy → deep/medium/light, stewardship variant → flat/expanded, context → work/side-project/household/… So a value is identical whether you read it from cdno --json or over MCP.